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A MANUAL 



ENGLISH HISTORY 



FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS 



BY 



EDWARD M. LANCASTER 

PRINCIPAL OF THE GILBERT STUART SCHOOL, BOSTON 



REVISED EDIT/ON- 




NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



TWO COPIES RECE1 

iry of Cowgra8fi» 
ric*» of tha 



or of Copyright* 



54387 



Copyright, 1877 and 1900, by 
EDWARD M. LANCASTER. 



LAN. ENG. HIST. 

w. p. 5 



BSC COPY, 









PREFACE 

This " Manual of English History " has been prepared 
to meet the wants of those schools whose limited time 
forbids an extended course of study. The mere com- 
mittal to memory of the names of kings and isolated 
events, however important, is in no proper sense a study 
of history. There should be enough of explanation and 
detail to make intelligible the relation which one event 
bears to another, that is, the cause and effect of events. 
The author has sought, therefore, in the preparation of 
this manual, to arrange the essential facts of English his- 
tory in the briefest manner consistent with clearness and 
a proper understanding of causal relations. 

The most valuable lesson to be learned by American 
youth from the history of the mother country is the worth 
of liberty, civil and religious. The struggle between the 
king and the people, the one striving to maintain the 
royal prerogative and the other to secure their natural 
rights, was happily over long before we became an inde- 
pendent nation. TJie principles established by the Revo- 
lution of 1688 stand an enduring monument of the triumph 
of the people. Our constitution is but the matured prod- 
uct of that long and painful struggle, and a just conception 
of the one can be gained only by a careful study of the 
other. 

3 



4 PREFACE 

If the youth of our land, however few in number, shall 
be aided, by the use of this brief work, in forming a just 
estimate of the free institutions under which they live, the 
highest object of the author will have been accomplished. 

Among the many works consulted in the preparation of 
this manual, special acknowledgments are due to Knight's 
" Popular History of England," valuable for its fullness of 
detail ; and Green's " Short History of the English Peo- 
ple," which, in the masterly comprehension and vivid 
expression of the spirit of English history, stands abso- 
lutely without a peer. Among later authorities consulted 
are McCarthy's " History of Our Own Times," and San- 
derson's " British Empire." 

The author remembers thankfully the assistance of 
numerous friends. He takes great pleasure in mention- 
ing the name of his esteemed friend, Henry B. Miner, 
Principal of the Edward Everett School of this city, to 
whom he is especially indebted for many valuable sug- 
gestions. 

E. M. L. 

Boston, 1900. 



KINGS OF ENGLAND 



SAXON LINE 


HOUSE OF LANCASTER 




827- 837-10 
837- 857-20 
857- 860- 3 
860- 866- 6 
866- 871- 5 
871- 901-30 
901- 925-24 
925- 941-16 
941- 948- 7 
948- 955- 7 
955- 959- 4 
9S9- 975-16 
975- 978- 3 
978-1016-38 
1016-1017- 1 




Eihelwolf 

Ethelbald 

Ethelbert 


Henry IV 


1399-1413-14 
1413-1422- 9 
1422-1461-39 








Alfred 

Edward the Elder 

Athelslan 


HOUSE OF YORK 






1461-1483-22 
1483. 74 days 
1483-1485- 2 






Richard III , 




Edward the Martyr .... 
Ethelred II 






TUDOR FAMILY 






DANISH LINE 


Henry VII 

Henry VIII 


1485-1509-24 
1509-1547-38 




1017-1035-18 
1035-1039- 4 
1039-1042- 3 
1042-1066-24 
1066. 9 mos. 


I547.-I553- 6 
I553-I558- 5 
1558-1603-45 


Harold I 


Mary 


Canute II 


Edward — Saxon 

Harold II. — Saxon. . . . 


STUART FAMILY 






NORMAN LINE 




1603-1625-22 




1066-1087-21 
1087-1 100-13 
1 100-1 135-35 
"35-"54-i9 


1625-1649-24 
1649-1660-11 
1660-1685-25 
1685-16K8- 3 
1689-1702-13 


William I 

William II 


James II 

William and Mary 








PLANTAGENET FAMILY 




Henry II 


1154-1189-35 
1189-1199-10 
1199-1216-17 
1216-1272-56 
1272-1307-35 
1307-1327-20 

i3 2 7- I 377-5° 
1377-1399-22 


HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 


Henry III 


George I 

George II 


1714-1727-13 
1727-1760-33 




1760-1820-60 
1820-1830-10 
1 830- 1 837- 7 
1837- 


Edward III 


William IV 

Victoria 


Richard II 





NAMES OF KINGS AND LEADING TOPICS 



Roman Conquest and Occupation — the first four centuries. 
Saxon Conquest and Heptarchy — the next four centuries. 
Reign of Saxon Kings and Danish Invasions — the ninth and tenth centuries. 
Danish Conquest and Reign of Danish and Saxon Kings — the eleventh 
century. 

LEADING TOPICS 

£ > /• NAMES OF KINGS 

Z^ I William I. — Norman Rule — Saxon Rebellion — The Feudal System. 
m Z [ William II. — Beginning of the Crusades — The System of Chivalry. 

Henry I. — First Charter of Liberties — Union of Saxon and Norman 

Families — Robert, Duke of Normandy. 
Stephen — Usurpation — Civil War and Anarchy — Compromise with 
Henry. 






X > 



►J H J 



Henry II. — Plantagenet Rule — Establishment of Order — Constitutions 
of Clarendon and Thomas a Becket — Courts of Justice. 

Richard I. — The Knight and Crusader — Usurpation of John. 

John — Contest with the Pope — Rebellion of Barons — Magna 

Charta. 

Henry III. — Rebellion of Barons — Simon de Montfort— House of Com- 
mons — Prince Edward and the Holy Land. 
2 ^ I Edward I. — Conquest of Wales — War with Scotland — Arbitrary Taxa- 
h tion forbidden. 

Edward II. — War with Scotland — Rebellion — Deposition of Edward. 

Edward III. — War with Scotland — War with France for the Crown — 
Chivalry and the Black Prince. 

Richard II. —Wat Tyler's Rebellion — Chaucer— Wickliffe and the First 
Reformation. 

Henry IV. — House of Lancaster — Rebellions — Persecution of Re- 
formers. 
Henry V. — Reformation suppressed — Conquest of France — The Navy. 
Henry VI. — Joan of Arc and the Loss of France — Jack Cade's Rebellion 
— Wars of the Roses. 

Edward IV. — House of York — Wars of the Roses — William Caxton and 

the Art of Printing. 
Edward V. — Usurpation of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. 
Richard III. — Wars of the Roses ended with the death of Richard at 

Bosworth. 



S P 



S > 

z « 
w 5 



£U 



NAMES OF KINGS AND LEADING TOPICS 7 

LEADING TOPICS 

NAMES OF KINGS 

Henry VII. — Tudor Family — Union of York and Lancaster — Simnel 

and Warbeck — Discovery of America — Revival of 

Learning. 

' Henry VIII. — Catherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey — Progress of 

Learning — Separation from Rome and the Reformation. 

H > Edward VI. — Reformation Continued — Duke of Northumberland and 

w D Lady Jane Grey. 

" Z "* Mary — Reconciliation with Rome and Persecution of Protestants 

« y — Philip of Spain — Calais. 

Elizabeth — Church of England — Mary, Queen of Scots — Philip and 
the Armada — Maritime Supremacy — Great Names. 

James I. — Stuart Family — Union of Crowns — Gunpowder Plot — 
Translation of the Bible — Settlement of America. 

Charles I. — Illegal Taxation and Civil War — Petition of Right — Trial 
and Execution of Charles. 

The Commonwealth — The Monarchy Abolished and Commonwealth 
Established — Cromwell and the Protectorate. 

Charles II. — The Restoration — Plague and Fire — Habeas Corpus Act 

— Popish and Rye House Plots. 
James II. — Monmouth's Rebellion — Attempt to Restore Catholicism 

— The Revolution. 
William and Mary — Rebellion in Ireland — War with France and Peace 

of Ryswick — Bill of Rights — English Constitu- 
tion. 
Anne — War of Spanish Succession and Peace of Utrecht — Union 

of England and Scotland — The Augustan Age of 
English Literature. 

George I. — House of Brunswick — The Old Pretender — The South 
Sea Scheme. 

George II. — Walpole and his Policy — War of Austrian Succession and 
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle — The Young Pretender — 
Seven Years' War — William Pitt — India. 

George III. — Peace of Paris — Canada — American Revolution — French 
Revolution — Second War with the United States. 

George IV. — Independence of Greece — Catholic Emancipation Act. 

William IV. — Reform Bill of 1832 — Abolition of Slavery. 

Victoria — Repeal of the Corn Laws — the Navigation Acts — and the 
Laws against Jews. Passage of Laws disestablishing the 
Irish Church — extending the Elective Franchise — sub- 
stituting the Ballot for open voting — and founding a 
System of Public Schools. Wars with China and the 
Opening of Ports — the Crimean War — the Indian 
Mutiny — Civil War in the United States — Loss and 
Recovery of the Sudan — British Guiana boundary line 

— the Boer Wars. 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE 



SAXON LINE 

Egbert 

I 
Ethelwolf 



Ethelbald Ethelbert Ethelred I. Alfred 



DANISH LINE 

Sweyn 

I 
Canute I. 

r— ' 1 

Harold Canute II. 



Edward the Elder 



I I 

Athelstan Edmund Edred 



Edwy 



Edgar 



Edward the Martyr ETHELRED II. 



NORMAN LINE 
William the Conqueror 



EDMUND Ironside 

Edward the Outlaw 

I 
Margaret 



Robert WILLIAM II. HENRY I. Adela Matilda 

I 
Stephen- 



Edward 
the Confessor 

Earl Godwin 
Harold II. 



Richard I. 
Casur de Lion 



' Matilda Union of Saxon and Norman Families 
Henry II. 



Geoffrey 



John 



Arthur Eleanor HENRY III. 

Murdered by John 

Edward I. 

Edward II. 

Edward III. 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE 



Edward III. 



Edward, the 
Black Prince 



Richard II. 



Lionel, Duke 
of Clarence 

I 
Philippa 

I 
Mortimer 



yohn of Gaunt, 
Duke of Lancaster 



Edmund, 
Duke of York 



Edmund 

Mortimer, 

Earl of March 



Anne 



Henry IV. 

I 

Henry V. 

I 
Henry VI. 



Earl of Richard, 

Somerset Earl of 

Cambridge 



Duke of 



| Union of second and Somerset 
Richard fourth branches 



Edward IV. 



Richard III. 



Edward V. 



Richard Elizabeth 



The Smothered Princes 



Union of York 
and Lancaster 



Margaret 
Henry VII. 



Henry VIII. 



Mary, 

Daughter of 

Catherine 

of Aragon 



Elizabeth, 
Daughter of 
Anne Boleyn 



Edward VI., 

Son of 

Jane 

Seymour 



Margaret 
married 

y antes IV. 
of Scotland 

James V, 

I 

Mary, 

Queen of Scots 

James I. 



Maty 

Frances 
Jane Grey 



Charles I. 



Charles II. 



James II. 



I 
Mary 



Anne 



/ James \ 

(I ) 

\ Charles/ 

The Pretenders 



Mary 

married 

Prince of Nassau 

I 
William III. 



Union of Stuart and Nassau 



Elizabeth 

I 

Sophia 

married 

Elector of 

Hanover 

\ 

George I. 

I 
George II. 

Ml 

George III. 



George IV. 



William IV. 



Duke of Kent 

I 
Victoria 



THE ROYAL FAMILY 

Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 
Duchess of Lancaster, Defender of the Faith, and Empress of India; 
b. (born) May 24, 1819; ascended the throne June 20, 1837; m. (mar- 
ried) February 10, 1840, Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who died 
December 14, 1861. 

Victoria Adelaide Maria Louisa, Princess Royal; b. November 21, 1840; 
m. January 25, 185S, Frederick, later Emperor of Germany and King of 
Prussia, and had eight children. Emperor Frederick died June 15, 1888, 
a few months after coming to the throne. 

Albert Edward, His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales; b. November 9, 
1841; m. March 10, 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, and had six 
children. 

Alice Maud Mary; b. April 25, 1843; m - J m y I > 1862, Frederick William, 
Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, and had seven children; died December 14, 
1878. Prince Frederick died March 13, 1892. 

Alfred Ernest Albert, Duke of Edinburgh; b. August 6, 1844; m. Jan- 
uary 23, 1864, Grand Duchess Alexandrovna of Russia, and had five 
children. 

Helena Augusta Victoria; b. May 25, 1846; m. July 5, 1866, Frederick, 
Prince of Sleswick-Holstein, and had five children. 

Louise Caroline Alberta; b. March 18, 1848; m. March 21, 1871, John 
Douglass Campbell, Marquis of Lome, eldest son of the Duke of Argyle. 

Arthur William Patrick Albert, Duke of Connaught; b. May 1, 1850; 
m. March 13, 1879, Princess Louisa Margaret of Prussia, and had three 
children. 

Leopold George Duncan Albert, Duke of Albany; b. April 7, 1853; 
m. April 27, 1SS2, Princess Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont, and had two 
children; died March 28, 1884. 

Beatrice Maria Victoria Feodore; b. April 14, 1857; m. July 23, 1885, 
Prince Henry of Battenberg, and had four children. Prince Henry died 
at sea January 20, 1896. 

10 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE 



The British Empire includes the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland, and all its colonies and dependencies, having a population of more 
than 350,000,000, and an area of more than 10,000,000 square miles. 

EUROPEAN 
The British Isles, the Channel Islands, Malta, and Gibraltar. 

ASIATIC 

British India, Ceylon, Aden, Straits Settlements, Hongkong, Sarawak, 
Brunei, British North Borneo, Labuan, Cyprus, and Wei-hai-wei. 

AUSTRALIAN AND PACIFIC 

Australia, Tasmania, British New Guinea, New Zealand, the Fiji Islands, 
the Gilbert Islands, and many other islands in the Pacific. 

AFRICAN 

Cape Colony, Natal, South Africa, Walfish Bay, Central Africa, East Africa, 
Somali, Gambia, Lagos, the Gold Coast, Niger Territories, Sierra Leone, and 
the islands of Ascension, Mauritius, Socotra, and St. Helena. 

NORTH AMERICAN 

British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward 
Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia, the Northwest Terri- 
tories, and Newfoundland, all, except the last named, being united under the 
title of the Dominion of Canada; Belize; and the Bermudas. 

SOUTH AMERICAN 
British Guiana, South Georgia, and the Falkland Islands. 

WEST INDIAN 

Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad, and most of the Lesser Antilles. 

11 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. From the Beginning till 827 

II. The Saxon Line . 

III. The Danish Line . 

IV. The Norman Line 
V. Plantagenet Family 

VI. House of Lancaster 

VII. House of York . 

VIII. Tudor Family 

IX. House of Stuart 

X. House of Brunswick or Hanover 

Appendix. The British Government 
Cardinal Dates of English History 

Index 



13 
23 
29 

33 

49 
92 
no 
125 
171 
237 
321 
325 
329 



LIST OF MAPS 



Historical Map of the British Isles . . . Frontispiece 
Britain in the Midst of the English Conquest . . 20 
Dominions of the English at the Time of Henry II . 54 
The Provinces of France and Parts of the Adjacent 

Countries 78 

British India 247 



MANUAL OF ENGLISH HISTORY 

CHAPTER I 

Britons, Romans, and Saxons 

The Britons. — We know little of the early history of 
Britain. From rude relics found in the soil, we conclude 
that the island was once inhabited by a race of savages 
who disappeared before a superior people that, at some 
unknown period, crossed from the continent of Europe. 
These Celtic invaders were found in sole possession when 
the Romans first visited the island, about half a century 
before Christ. They were a barbarous people, divided 
into numerous tribes, whose principal employment was 
war. Their weapons were spears and broadswords, with 
blades of bronze, and they also used wicker shields cov- 
ered with skins, and chariots armed with projecting 
scythes, in which, drawn by trained horses, they rode at 
full speed into the very midst of their foes. Their homes 
were huts and caves in the forests which at that time cov- 
ered nearly all the land. They subsisted upon their flocks 
and herds and the products of the chase, and wore little 
clothing, painting their bodies blue and covering them 
with hideous tattoos to make themselves terrible to their 
enemies in battle. But those occupying the southwestern 

13 



14 THE BRITONS 

corner of the island were superior to the rest, having been 
visited by other nations, from time immemorial, for the 
tin found in the mines of that section. Even the mer- 
chants of ancient Tyre and Sidon occasionally sent ships 
to barter Phoenician wares for British tin. 

Druidism. — The Britons professed a religion called 
Druidism. They worshiped one Supreme Being, of 
whom they had no just conception, and numerous infe- 
rior deities, to whom they offered human sacrifices. The 
heavenly bodies occupied a prominent place among these 
inferior deities. The Britons believed in a future state of 
existence in which rewards and punishments were meted 
out according as men's conduct had been good or bad in 
this life. Much of the power and all the learning were 
confined to the priests, called Druids. They made the 
laws, administered justice, and were the sole instructors 
of the young. Nothing was committed to writing, and 
education consisted in receiving from the lips of the Dru- 
ids and committing to memory a great number of verses 
on geography, astronomy, and religion. The priests per- 
formed their mystic rites in temples, each formed of a cir- 
cular row of huge stones standing upright, with the altar 
in the center, open to the heavens above, and located in 
groves of their sacred tree, the oak. Remains of these 
temples still exist in various places, the most notable at 
Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. Their most holy place 
was the Island of Mona, now Anglesea, just across the 
Menai Strait. Their most solemn festival occurred on the 
sixth day of the moon nearest the tenth of March, their 
New Year's Day, when the chief Druid, clothed in white 
robes, with a golden knife cut the sacred mistletoe from 



THE ROMAN CONQUEST 1 5 

the oak to which it clung. There were three other festi- 
vals of special interest to the English people, since to 
them may be traced the festivities of May Day, Midsum- 
mer Eve, and Harvest-home, celebrating respectively the 
sowing of the seed, the ripening of the crops, and the 
gathering of the harvests. 

First Roman Invasion. — Britain, lying to the west of 
the continent, and separated from it by an expanse of 
water, was too insignificant to excite either enmity or 
cupidity, and long escaped the notice of Rome, the " Mis- 
tress of the World." It was only when the tide of Roman 
conquest had reached the western shore of Europe, that 
the scheme of making it a Roman province was first con- 
ceived. Julius Caesar, having nearly completed the sub- 
jugation of the Gauls, crossed the English Channel with 
two legions, and landed just beyond the cliffs of Dover, 
B.C. 55. The Britons, warned of the purpose of Caesar, 
had gathered in large numbers to oppose his landing. 
Though they were driven back, and repeatedly beaten, 
so stubborn were they that Caesar did not venture far 
from the coast, and was glad to accept their offers of 
peace and return to Gaul. But the next year he returned 
with a much larger force : five legions or thirty thousand 
foot soldiers, and two thousand horse. Having conquered 
the country for some distance beyond the Thames, com- 
pelling the chiefs to pay tribute and give hostages, Caesar 
again withdrew from British soil. 

Second Roman Invasion. — Occupied with weightier mat- 
ters, the Romans soon practically forgot their distant and 
worthless conquest, and the Britons were left for nearly a 
century to take care of themselves. During this period 



1 6 BRITONS AND ROMANS 

a growing trade and a better acquaintance with their 
neighbors on the continent had done something toward 
their civilization, attracting the attention of the Roman 
Emperor Claudius, who began, in a.d. 43, a second and 
more difficult conquest. 

Caractacus. — Caractacus, the most important of the 
chiefs at that time, putting himself at the head of the 
inland tribes, for eight years held the Romans at bay, 
when he was captured and taken to Rome to grace the 
triumph of his captor. " Is it possible that a people pos- 
sessed of so much magnificence at home could covet my 
humble cottage in Britain ! " exclaimed the wondering 
barbarian as he gazed on the glories of Rome. His 
kingly bearing won the respect of the Emperor, who 
restored him to liberty, and this is the last we hear of the 
noble Briton. 

Slaughter of the Druids. — The Druids possessed almost 
unlimited power over the people, and this power they had 
used to the utmost, to arouse in them a bitter hostility to 
Roman authority. Suetonius, the Roman general and 
governor, resolving to strike a decisive blow, in the year 
61 crossed the strait of Menai and landed on the sacred 
shore of Mona. For a moment even Roman soldiers 
faltered, as they listened to the shrieks and imprecations 
of frantic priests and priestesses, and beheld the host of 
painted warriors gathered to defend their altars ; then 
pressing resolutely forward, they soon gained possession 
of this stronghold of British superstition and British power, 
and Druidism received a fatal blow in the slaughter of its 
priests and the destruction of its groves and temples. 

Boadicea. — During the absence of Suetonius a fresh 



THE ROMAN CONQUEST 1 7 

insurrection broke out under Boadicea, widow of the king 
of the Icenians. Stung to madness by shameful abuse, 
when protesting against the seizure of all her wealth by 
Roman officials, she went from tribe to tribe exciting the 
warriors to frenzy with the story of her wrongs. Under 
her lead they suddenly fell upon the Roman settlements, 
and seventy thousand soldiers and citizens were put to the 
sword. Suetonius hurried back from Mona to wreak a 
terrible vengeance on the Britons in arms. In a great 
battle fought near London, eighty thousand warriors sealed 
with their blood their devotion to their country, and the 
spirited queen, unwilling to survive the slaughter of her 
people and the destruction of her hopes, put an end to 
her own life. » 

The Roman Conquest. — But the Britons were still 
unsubdued, and it remained for Agricola (who became 
governor in the* year j&), by the practice of justice and 
humanity as well as soldierly skill, to reconcile them to 
Roman authority. Under the firm but liberal policy of 
Agricola and his successors, the Britons rapidly improved. 
They gave up their heathenish rites and savage customs, 
and adopted the manners, dress, and, to some extent, the 
language of the Romans. They became peaceful and 
industrious. Wide stretches of gloomy forests gave place 
to fields of waving grain ; and the mines of tin, lead, and 
iron began to be worked in earnest. Their surplus prod- 
ucts found a ready market abroad, giving rise to a moder- 
ate but increasing commerce. The construction by the 
Romans of a system of public roads not only facilitated 
the transportation of troops to needed points, but hastened 
the development of the country and the civilization of its 

LAN. ENG. HIST. 2 



1 8 BRITONS, ROMANS, AND SAXONS 

inhabitants. A wall of solid stone, twelve feet high and 
eight feet thick, running from the mouth of the Tyne to 
the Solway Firth, a distance of sixty-eight miles, was built 
by the Emperor Severus to protect the Britons from the 
incursions of the Scots and Picts, wild and warlike tribes 
occupying the highlands of Caledonia. Rome continued 
in undisturbed possession of Britain until the year 420, 
when she recalled her soldiers to repel the Goths, who 
were pouring from their German homes into Italy in vast 
numbers, threatening even Rome itself. 

The Saxon Conquest. — The Romans had no sooner 
left the island than the Scots and Picts, boldly crossing 
the wall of Severus, renewed their ravages in the northern 
districts. The Britons, weakened by long subjection to 
Rome, were unable to defend themselves ; and, after a 
vain appeal to the Emperor Honorius for help, called to 
their aid the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, who together are 
called Anglo-Saxons, or sometimes Saxons. 

These were fierce German tribes inhabiting the penin- 
sula of Jutland and the country around the mouths of the 
Elbe and Weser rivers, who, roaming about the waters 
of the North and Baltic seas in their pirate boats, had 
long been the scourge of all the adjoining coasts. They 
entered Britain under the command of their brave chief- 
tains, Hengist and Horsa, in the year 449, and quickly 
compelled the northern marauders to retire to their native 
highlands. 

But, attracted by the mildness of the climate and the 
beauty and fertility of the country, and finding, in con- 
nection with the promised reward, a pretext for a quarrel, 
they soon turned their arms against the Britons themselves. 



THE SAXON CONQUEST 1 9 

The latter, compelled to fight in defense of their homes, 
gradually recovered their ancient valor. For a century 
and a half the struggle for mastery in the island went on, 
fresh hordes of Germans pouring in, from time to time, to 
the help of their countrymen. 

The battle of Chester, fought in the year 607, estab- 
lished, beyond a doubt, the supremacy of the invaders. 
The districts still occupied by the natives, being severed 
one from another, could no longer act in concert, and the 
struggle, though lingering, ceased to have a national char- 
acter. The brave but hapless Britons, beaten on all sides, 
and pursued with fire and sword, at last found a safe re- 
treat among the mountain fastnesses of Wales and Corn- 
wall. There, animated by a burning love of liberty, they 
continued in almost unbroken war for six hundred years, 
defying the whole power of England to subdue them ; and 
there their descendants, the Welsh, live to-day, a hardy, 
vigorous race, now at peace with the English, who have 
long since shared with them the blessings of a common 
country. 

During the Roman occupation, Christianity had sup- 
planted the native religion. The Latin language, too, 
had gradually come into use, especially among the upper 
classes and in the larger towns. The entire disappearance 
of Christianity, and both the Latin and native languages, 
attests the thoroughness of the German or Anglo-Saxon 
conquest. A few slaves held for the pleasure or profit of 
the conquerors were all that were left of the native 
population. 

King Arthur. — Of the many heroic Britons who strug- 
gled against the German conquest, the most famous whose 



20 BRITONS AND SAXONS 

name has come down to us is Arthur, chief of one of the 
tribes in the west. But so much of fable has been woven 
into the story of this patriot Briton and his sixty " Knights 
of the Round Table," that we can with confidence only 
say that such a prince lived and bravely fought the 
enemies of his country. 

The Heptarchy. — The conquerors gradually established 
separate kingdoms as they won new territory, each having 
its independent king. Seven of these, from their greater 
prominence, have been called, in history, the Heptarchy. 1 
After the conquerors had become firmly established in 
their new homes, and the sharpness of the struggle with 
the Britons had begun to decline, jealousy and ambition 
for preeminence involved them in wars with one another. 
Constant changes, therefore, took place in the number and 
boundaries of the kingdoms. The stronger gradually ab- 
sorbed the weaker, until Wessex, under its vigorous king 
Egbert, brought them all under one government in the 
year 827. 

Introduction of Christianity. — Britain first became Chris- 
tian under Rome, but how or when is not known. Possi- 
bly a Christian soldier in a Roman legion told the story 
of the Cross at a native fireside, or some nameless but 
devoted priest, going on a mission to heathen Britain, 
achieved a conquest under the banners of the Cross 
more glorious than that of Roman arms. St. Alban is 

1 Kent, or Cantia, was founded by Hengist, in 457; SOUTH Saxony, or Sus- 
sex, by Ella, in 490; WEST Saxony, or Wessex, by Cerdic, in 519; East Sax- 
ONY, or Essex, by Ercewin, in 527; NORTHUMBERLAND (North of the Humber) 
by Ida, in 547; East Anglia, comprising Norfolk (North folks) and Suffolk 
(South folks) by Uffa, in 575; MERCIA (Marchmen, or people on the march or 
frontier) by Cridda, in 582. 



THE SAXON CONQUEST 21 

recorded to have suffered martyrdom as early as the year 
304. With the advent of the Anglo-Saxons the Christian 
religion disappeared, and for a century and a half Britain 
remained under a paganism more debasing than that of 
the Druids. 

Christianity was introduced, a second time, by Augus- 
tine x and a band of forty monks from Rome, in the year 
597. Ethelbert, king of Kent, who married Bertha, a 
Christian lady, and daughter of the king of Paris, was 
the first convert. His people followed his example and 
accepted Christianity. Augustine became Archbishop of 
Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, and his 
successors have retained their superiority ever since. 
Ethelbert's daughter, Ethelburh, married Edwin, king of 
Northumbria, and through her influence and that of her 
priest Paulinus, Edwin and his people were converted. 
The other kingdoms became Christian during the next 
century. 

Anglo-Saxon Religion. — The principal deity of the 
Anglo-Saxons was Woden, the god of war, from whom all 
their royal families claimed descent ; the next in rank 
being Thor, or Thunder, the god of storms. Each day of 

1 The venerable Bede, our principal authority for early English history, tells how- 
Christianity was now introduced into Britain. Gregory, a priest, one day saw in 
the market place of Rome some very beautiful boys for sale, and asked who they 
were and whence they came. He was told they were heathen boys from the Isle of 
Britain. He then asked the name of their nation. " Angles" was the answer. 
"Angles" said Gregory; " they have the faces of Angels, and they ought to be 
made fellow-heirs of the Angels in Heaven. But of what tribe of Angles are 
they ? " " Of Deira" was the reply. " Deira / " said Gregory, " then they must be 
delivered from the wrath of God {de ira). And what is the name of their king ? " 
" ^Ella." "sEllal then Alleluia shall be sung in his land." Some time afterwards 
Gregory became Pope and sent Augustine and forty other monks to convert the 
English. 



22 THE SAXONS 

the week was dedicated to a particular deity, from whom 
it received its name — a name it still continues to bear. 1 
Like barbarous tribes in general, making the future exist- 
ence a realization of their highest ideal of the present life, 
they filled their Valhalla or Heaven with scenes of war, 
where happy Saxons would live forever, occupying the 
days in the slaughter of their enemies, and the nights in 
wild carousals of victory. 

Anglo-Saxon Government. — The king was assisted in 
the government by a great council, called Witenagemot, or 
"Assembly of the Wise," composed of the great nobles, 
the ealdormen or earls, and, after the introduction of Chris- 
tianity, the bishops and abbots. This council met regu- 
larly at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and on special 
occasions when summoned. At the death of the king it 
assembled to elect his successor, who was taken from the 
royal family, but was not always the next in line. Besides 
the earls, who acted as judges and rulers in their districts, 
there was an inferior class of nobles, called thanes, men 
who had risen to nobility by personal attendance on the 
king. The churls were freemen of the middle and lower 
classes, the lowest class of all being the serfs or slaves, 
who composed about two thirds of the inhabitants. 

1 SUNDAY (Sun's day) or day for the worship of the sun ; MONDAY (Moon's 
day) or day for the worship of the moon; Tuesday (Tiw's day), the day of the 
dark god Tiw, to meet whom was death ; Wednesday (Woden's day), the day of 
Woden, the war god ; THURSDAY (Thor's day) , the day of Thor, the god of storms ; 
Friday (Frea's day), the day of Frea, the goddess of peace and fruitfulness ; SAT- 
URDAY (Saetere's day), the day of an obscure god Saetere. 



CHAPTER II 
The Saxon Line, 827 to 1017 — 190 Years 



EGBERT 
ETHELWOLF 
ETHELBALD 
ETHELBERT 
ETHELRED I. 
ALFRED the Great 
EDWARD the Elder 



ATHELSTAN 

EDMUND I. 

EDRED 

EDWY 

EDGAR 

EDWARD the Martyr 

ETHELRED II. 



EGBERT, 827 TO 837 — 10 YEARS 

The Danish Invasions. — Egbert called the country Eng- 
land, from the Angles, the most powerful of the three 
tribes. His reign is generally regarded as the beginning 
of the English monarchy. No sooner were the different 
kingdoms united under one government and at peace 
among themselves, than a new danger appeared from 
without. Inroads began to be made by the Danes or 
Northmen, the piratical people of Denmark and Scandi- 
navia, who, descending upon the eastern coast during the 
summer, would load their boats with plunder, and retire 
for the winter to their strongholds on the shores of the 
North and Baltic seas. They came year after year in ever 
increasing numbers, until at last, from pirate bands in 
search of plunder, they grew into invading armies bent on 
conquest. They planted themselves at various points 
along the coast, and waged perpetual war with the Eng- 
lish in the interior. 

23 



24 THE SAXON LINE 

They even colonized the coast of Ireland, forcing the 
inhabitants back into the interior. From the reign of 
Egbert to that of Ethelred the Unready, a period of nearly 
two hundred years, the struggle between Saxon and Dane 
went on, ending, as we shall see a little later, in the estab- 
lishment of Danish rule. 

Egbert was succeeded by Ethelwolf, a good and pious 
king, who was followed by his four sons in succession, 
Ethelbald, who died lamented by his people ; Ethelbert, a 
vicious and unworthy king ; Ethelred I., a brave soldier, 
under whom Alfred learned the art of war, and whom he 
succeeded. 

ALFRED THE GREAT, 871 TO 901 — 30 YEARS 

War with the Danes. — During the early part of his 
reign, Alfred was engaged in constant warfare with the 
Danes. Defeated in battle after battle by the overwhelm- 
ing number of his foes, he was compelled, for a time, to 
hide in a secluded spot in the swamps and forests of Som- 
ersetshire, still known as Athelney, or Prince's Island. 1 
Wishing to learn the strength and arrangement of the 
Danish camp, he presented himself before Guthrum, the 
Danish king, disguised as a minstrel. For several days he 

1 Alfred, while a refugee, found temporary shelter in a herdsman's cottage. The 
herdsman's wife one day set him to watch some cakes that were baking over the 
fire; but Alfred, intent on mending his bow, let the cakes burn, and was sharply 
reproved by the indignant woman when she returned. The whole story may be a 
mere legend or may come from an ancient ballad. There are two old Latin verses 
that quaintly express the good woman's alleged reproof: — 

" Urere quos cernis panes gyrare moraris, 
Quum nimium gaudes hos manducare calentes." 

" There, don't you see the cakes on fire ? Then wherefore turn them not ? 
You are glad enough to eat them when they are piping hot." 



ALFRED THE GREAT 2$ 

amused the unsuspicious Danes with harp and song, when, 
having gained the desired information, he disappeared as 
mysteriously as he had come. Putting himself at the head 
of his trusted followers, he made a sudden attack on the 
Danish camp and gained a signal victory. 

By treaty, Guthrum and his followers received baptism, 
withdrew from Wessex, Alfred's native kingdom, and 
settled in the eastern districts as nominal vassals of the 
English king. Peace was broken after an interval of ten 
years by the arrival of Hastings, the famous sea king, 
with a great fleet. Alfred once more took the field, and 
by his skill and genius the Danish fleet was captured, its 
army routed, and Hastings compelled to take refuge in 
France. 

Alfred's Government. — Peace being restored, Alfred 
devoted the few remaining years of his life to the better 
organization of his kingdom and the elevation of his peo- 
ple. He invited wise men of other nations to his court, 
and founded schools of learning, among them the Univer- 
sity of Oxford. He translated into the English tongue, 
portions of the Scriptures, the history of Bede, the early 
English chronicler, and Latin works of merit, and thus 
gave an impulse to learning. He compiled a code of laws, 
chiefly from the systems of his predecessors, containing 
principles of the greatest value in modern jurisprudence. 
He organized a militia, and divided the country into coun- 
ties, hundreds, and tens, after the old Saxon system, mak- 
ing each section responsible for the good behavior of its 
inhabitants. So complete and successful was his system 
of government, that violence and disorder disappeared 
from the land. The boast is handed down to us that gold 



26 THE SAXON LINE 

and jewels, left unguarded by the roadside, would remain 
untouched by dwellers or passers-by. As a soldier, states- 
man, and scholar, Alfred has never been surpassed by 
any English sovereign. 

Alfred's Successors. — He was succeeded, in order, by 
Edward the Elder, who first assumed the title of King of 
England ; Athelstan, a good and valiant king, who caused 
the Bible to be translated into Anglo-Saxon, and a copy 
placed in every church in the kingdom ; Edmund, who 
was stabbed at his own table by the banished robber, 
Leolf ; Edred, sickly but brave ; Edwy, whose romantic 
marriage with his beautiful cousin Elgiva brought upon 
both the vengeance of Dunstan the Abbot, Elgiva dying 
by violence, and Edwy with grief ; Edgar, the proud but 
peaceable ; Edward the Martyr, young and promising, who 
was killed at the gate of Corfe Castle by order of his 
stepmother ; and finally Ethelred the Unready. 

Massacre of Danes. — Ethelred, afraid to fight the 
Danes in an open and manly way, purchased peace by 
promising to pay them an annual tribute, called Danegeld, 
raised by a tax on land, the first on record in England. 
This tax proving very unpopular, Ethelred planned a 
massacre of all the Danes in the kingdom as the easiest 
way of getting rid of both Danegeld and Danes. 

The Danish Conquest. — This massacre took place on 
the Festival of St. Brice, in the year 1002, and so enraged 
Sweyn, king of Denmark, whose sister, a hostage of peace, 
was among the slain, that he assembled a large army, 
transported it to the English coast, and commenced the 
work of vengeance. Through and through the kingdom 
of Wessex went the furious Dane, " lighting his war bea- 



THE DANISH CONQUEST 27 

cons as he went," leaving behind him only the bodies of 
the dead and the ashes of their dwellings. Ethelred fled 
to France, and Sweyn became king of England, establish- 
ing the Danish authority in the year 1013. Sweyn died 
before coronation, and for a short time the Saxon line was 
restored in the person of Ethelred, and then in that of his 
son Edmund, called Ironside. Between the latter and 
Canute, son of Sweyn, there was a short and furious war 
to decide which should be king, ending in the division of 
the country between them. The death of Edmund, soon 
after, led to the submission of all England to the rule of 
Canute. 

Comparison between Saxon and Danish Conquests. — A 
brief comparison should be made between the Saxon and 
Danish conquests. The Saxons and Danes were of the 
same Teutonic stock, and in their German homes spoke 
the same language with dialectic differences. They wor- 
shiped the same heathen gods, and had essentially the 
same laws and customs. The Saxons had, long before 
their invasion of Britain, roamed about the waters of the 
German ocean in fleets of black pirate boats, swarming 
up all the rivers and scouring all the coasts in search of 
plunder. It was while they were on just such a piratical 
raid, that the Britons first obtained their help against the 
Scots and Picts. 

So clouds of Danish pirates hovered about the English 
coast before the Danish invasion, plundering their some- 
what civilized and Christianized Saxon kindred. The 
Saxons were a century and a half in completing their 
conquest, the Danes somewhat longer in effecting theirs. 
There was the same savage ferocity in battle, and the 



28 SAXONS AND DANES 

same ruthless slaughter of the conquered. The Danes 
regarded the Saxons as renegades from their ancient 
faith, and so it was, in either case, a war of heathenism 
on Christianity. 

But the final results were widely different. There was 
nothing in common between Briton and Saxon, and the 
war they waged was, on the part of the latter, one of 
extermination. But there was much in common between 
Saxon and Dane, and they could easily assimilate. The 
barbarism of the conquering Dane yielded to the civiliza- 
tion of the conquered Saxon, so that, in process of time, 
the former became, as it were, transformed into the latter. 



CHAPTER III 
The Danish Line, 1017 to 1042 — 25 Years 

CANUTE the Great I HARDICANDTE 
HAROLD 

CANUTE THE GREAT, 1017 TO 1035 — 18 YEARS 

The Reign of Canute. — Canute well deserved to be 
called the Great. He enlarged his kingdom, then com- 
prising England and Denmark, by bringing under his 
sway Norway and Sweden. But his chief claim to great- 
ness rests not on his exploits in war, but on his achieve- 
ments in peace. Coming to England from his native 
Denmark a fierce and bloodthirsty savage, he became in 
time a good, wise, and great king, 1 impartial in his sway 
over Saxon and Dane. Peace and the welcome sounds of 
industry soon took the place of war and its horrid din. 
By wise and popular laws, rigidly but impartially executed, 
he united and harmonized the discordant kingdoms, and 

1 His courtiers, wishing to flatter him by exalting his power, once told him that 
he was lord alike of sea and land, and would be obeyed by both. Wishing to 
show them how foolish as well as impious these praises were, he gave orders that 
his throne should be carried to the seashore at Southampton, and sat down upon 
it while the tide was coming in. " Now," said he, " O sea, I am thy lord ; come no 
nearer, presume not to wet my feet ! " The waves, of course, instead of attending 
to him, rolled on, till they flowed around his throne and washed over his feet. 
Turning to his attendants, he bade them remember that there is only One who can 
say to the deep, "So far shalt thou go, and no further; and here shall thy proud 
waves be stayed." He afterwards hung up his crown over the altar in Winchester 
Cathedral, and never wore it again. — YoNGE. 

29 



30 CANUTE THE GREAT 

healed the animosities of the different races, laying, for the 
first time, the foundations of national unity and greatness. 
Canute and the Christian Church. — Canute's treatment 
of the Christian church is worthy of notice. The bar- 
barous Danes had been merciless in the destruction of 
churches and monasteries, and in the slaughter of their 
inmates ; and, in consequence, all the powers of the 
church had been arrayed against them. Canute, on com- 
ing to power, instead of taking vengeance on the Christian 
church, yielded his heart to its holy faith, and became its 
friend and patron. He rebuilt and reendowed the religious 
houses which he and his father had burned, and even pro- 
tected Christian pilgrims journeying to Rome, from the 
robbers of the Alps. What true grandeur in his resolve 
"to rule justly and piously his realms and subjects, and 
to administer just judgment to all"! He died in 1035, 
lamented by all his people, and was succeeded by his son 
Harold, called Harefoot, whose only claim to fame was his 
swiftness in running ; and then by his second son Hardi- 
canute, or Canute II., who died of intemperance after a 
reign of two years. The people, disgusted with their later 
Danish rulers, then called to the throne Edward the Con- 
fessor, brother of Edmund Ironside, and son of Ethelred 
II., thus restoring the Saxon line. 

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 1042 TO 1066 — 24 YEARS 

Edward had spent all his early years in exile in Nor- 
mandy, and thus naturally had become Norman in his tastes 
and habits. On coming to the English throne he surrounded 
himself with Norman companions, whom he appointed to 



EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 3 1 

the principal offices of church and state, greatly to the 
discontent of the English people. But he had the wisdom 
to appoint, as his principal adviser, Godwin, Earl of Wes- 
sex, an Englishman, and the ablest statesman in the king- 
dom. Edward being in feeble health, Godwin became the 
virtual ruler of England, and by his skill and wisdom kept 
peace between the jealous English and the haughty Nor- 
man. Once exiled, he was soon recalled ; and at his death, 
which occurred shortly after his return, his son Harold, 
who had inherited all his father's greatness, took his place 
at the head of the affairs of state. 

Character of Edward. — Edward was a wise and pious 
king, and caused England to be governed by just and 
equal laws. For generations afterward the people, when 
ground down by tyranny, would look back with longing to 
the "good laws of Edward." His time was chiefly spent 
in deeds of charity and in the exercises of religion, and he 
attained to a purity and sanctity of character that, about a 
hundred years after his death, placed his name among 
those of the saints in the calendar of the church, and that 
have hallowed his memory even to this day. Edward was 
popularly believed to have the miraculous power to cure 
the scrofula, or "king's evil," by a touch, — a strange 
superstition in connection with the sovereign of England 
that found credence among the masses of the people even 
down to the reign of Queen Anne. Edward had married 
a daughter of Godwin, but died without heirs in the year 
1066. On his deathbed he named Harold as his successor, 
and the Witenagemot the same day elected Harold as king. 

William, Duke of Normandy. — William, Duke of Nor- 
mandy, had been planning for years to take the English 



32 EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 

throne at the death of Edward. He affirmed that Edward, 
with whom he had been educated at his father's court, had 
even promised him the kingdom, and that Harold, when 
once wrecked on the coast of Normandy and thrown 
into William's power, had sworn to support his claim. 
However this may be, on hearing of Harold's election, 
William, " speechless with rage," at once commenced the 
most vigorous preparations to enforce his claim. He built 
a great fleet and gathered about him an army of sixty 
thousand knights, the flower of the chivalry of Normandy, 
and having first obtained the Pope's sanction for the enter- 
prise, crossed the channel and landed on the coast of 
England, the last of September. 

Battle of Hastings, A.D. 1066. — William's merciless 
ravages of the adjoining country brought Harold to 
battle at Senlac, 1 near Hastings, about the middle of 
October. After a desperate struggle of nine hours' dura- 
tion, Harold fell, just at dusk, pierced to the brain with 
an arrow, and his broken and panic-stricken army fled 
away during the night. William entered London in 
triumph, two months later, and was crowned on Christ- 
mas day at Westminster. This is called, in history, the 
Conquest. 

1 In commemoration of his victory, William built a monastery called Battle 
Abbey on the very spot where Harold's standard had been planted. Although 
this has long since passed away, its successor, in ruins, reminds the traveler of 
the famous battle of Hastings. 



CHAPTER IV 
The Norman Line, 1066 to 1 154 — 88 Years 

WILLIAM I., the Conqueror I HENRY I., Beauclerk 

WILLIAM II., Rufus I STEPHEN 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 1066 TO 1087 — 21 YEARS 

Rolf, the Dane. — William was descended from Rolf, a 
Danish pirate, who in 912, soon after the time of Alfred 
the Great, had planted himself with his pirate crew at the 
mouth of the river Seine. The King of France, being 
unable to dislodge him, finally, by treaty, gave him his 
daughter in marriage and a title to Normandy, in return 
for which Rolf agreed to receive baptism and acknowledge 
himself a vassal of France. In process of time the same 
change befell the Danes in France that had befallen them 
in England ; they were absorbed by the more civilized 
people among whom they settled. As in England the 
Dane became an Englishman, so in France he became a 
Frenchman. 

Revolt of the English. — Soon after William's accession 
to power, and during his temporary absence in Normandy, 
there was a widespread revolt of the English. The signal 
for the rising was the appearance, on the coast, of a 
Danish fleet designed to restore Danish authority to the 
island. With a heavy bribe the crafty William induced 
the Danish commanders to abandon their purpose and 

*>AN. ENG. HIST. — 3 33 



34 THE NORMAN LINE 

return to Denmark. He then turned upon the rebels in 
arms with a ferocity he only could show. He ravaged 
the seaboard so that no Dane should find either foothold 
or plunder in future, and laid waste with fire and sword 
the old district of Deira, between the Humber and the 
Tees, the source and center of the rebellion. So complete 
was the devastation, that for the space of sixty miles 
north of York the whole district remained for half a cen- 
tury without an inhabitant, a barren waste marked only 
by blackened ruins. One hundred thousand human 
beings, who had fled to the woods at William's coming, 
crept back to the ashes of their homes, only to die of 
starvation. Although it was midwinter when the cruel 
work was done, the ruthless king started at once for the 
west, where the revolt was still formidable. Through an 
unbroken wilderness covered with drifts of snow and 
crossed by swollen streams, the starving army toiled pain- 
fully on, with the tireless king ever at the head. Chester 1 
was reached at last, and with its fall the rebellion virtually 
came to an end. 

Confiscation of English Estates. — Then commenced, 
under the direction of the revengeful king, a wholesale 
confiscation of rebel estates. These were distributed 

1 Chester is one of the most interesting as well as one of the oldest towns in 
England. It shows more plainly than any other the marks of the Roman occu- 
pation. It is the only town in England that has maintained its walls in their 
original form, the foundations of which were laid by the Romans themselves. 
Its long and interesting history is indicated by the following inscriptions, made 
from time to time upon its walls : — 

A. D. 61. Walls built by Romans. 

73. Marius, King of the Britons, extended the walls. 
607. The Britons defeated by the Saxons. 
906. Rebuilt by daughter of Alfred the Great. 
1399. Henry of Lancaster mustered his troops under the walls. 
1645. The Parliamentary forces made a breach in the walls. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 35 

among the Norman knights and nobles who had fought 
around William's standard, while their former Saxon 
owners either found refuge in foreign lands, or, forming 
hostile bands, waged a desultory warfare with their 
Norman conquerors. Hereward, a Saxon noble, retired 
to the isle of Ely, where, protected by almost impassable 
swamps, he long defied the Norman power. But William, 
building a causeway across the swamps, finally forced the 
valiant Saxon to surrender. 

The Feudal System Established. — The conquest of 
England now being complete, William turned his at- 
tention to the organization of the government, with a 
view to its security in the future. Normans were put 
into all places of power and trust. The military power 
of the government was based on the feudal system that 
already prevailed in Spain, France, and Germany. Under 
this system, the great nobles were granted almost un- 
limited power over the persons and property of their 
tenants, on certain conditions, the most important of 
which was that they should come to the support of the 
king with all their retainers in time of war. These 
nobles, generally living in strongly fortified castles, and 
constantly surrounded by devoted bodies of men-at-arms, 
thus became petty sovereigns, spending their time in the 
pleasures of the chase, or in making war on one another, 
and sometimes on the king himself. Ordinarily, vassals 
were required to swear homage only to their overlords, 
but William exacted homage from both overlords and 
vassals. William erected the feudal system in England 
as a bulwark to the throne, and such it was as against 
the conquered English. But when the spirit of disaffec- 



36 THE NORMAN LINE 

tion crept into the Norman nobility, thus made powerful 
and independent, the feudal system became the chief 
danger to the throne. 

The Domesday Book. — For the better organization of 
the kingdom and the more certain collection of its reve- 
nues, he ordered a great survey, the results of which were 
embodied in the " Domesday Book," showing the owner- 
ship, extent, and productions of all the estates in the 
kingdom. From this register the crown dues were care- 
fully calculated and they were rigidly collected. 

The Curfew Bell. — William established the curfew 
(fire-covering) bell. This was rung from every church- 
tower and monastery in England, at sunset in summer, 
and at eight o'clock in winter, as a signal for the people 
to cover the fires on the hearth and retire to rest. The 
law of the curfew had long prevailed in various parts of 
Europe as a safeguard against conflagrations, which were 
frequent and extensive in the wood-built towns. 

The Norman Language. — After the Saxon rebellion, 
Normans had been put into all responsible places, both 
of church and of state. Of necessity, therefore, all the 
business of the government and courts of justice, the 
services of the church, except such as regularly em- 
ployed Latin, and the exercises of the schools were 
conducted in the Norman language, which was a French 
dialect. Norman French thus came largely into use 
even among English people ; but the English masses 
still continued to talk in their Anglo-Saxon tongue. It 
is said that William tried, though in vain, to learn the 
Anglo-Saxon language, that he might be the better 
qualified to govern his whole people. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 37 

Character of William the Conqueror. — Reserved, 
haughty, severe in his rule, and ruthless in his revenge, 
"stark to baron or rebel," but "mild to them that loved 
God," he inspired a mingled sense of respect and awe in 
all about him. This sense was heightened, no doubt, by 
a consciousness of his great physical strength, no ordinary 
man being able to swing his battle-ax or bend his bow. 
There was a grandeur about the Conqueror that belongs 
to no other English king, as manifest in his fearless 
humanity as in his dauntless ferocity. If, with a ferocity 
that finds few parallels in all history, he blotted out re- 
bellious towns and brought the silence of death upon 
offending districts, yet with a humanity in striking con- 
trast with the spirit of the age he formally abolished 
capital punishment, and but one person suffered death 
for crime during his whole reign. 

To gratify his love of solitude and his fondness for the 
chase, he laid waste an extensive tract in Hampshire, 
reaching from Winchester to the sea, driving out its inhab- 
itants, and burning their dwellings and churches. But 
he also abolished the slave trade, that had long been a 
source of wealth to the merchants of Bristol, and he 
became the friend and patron of the Jews, then a hated 
race, allowing them to build dwellings and synagogues 
in all the principal towns. 

He was a true Catholic, and strengthened the church 
by .the establishment of ecclesiastical courts, afterwards, 
in the reign of Henry II., the source of much trouble; 
but he bluntly refused to obey the command of the Pope 
to do fealty for his realm. If he removed English prelates 
and abbots, he required of their Norman successors the 



38 THE NORMAN LINE 

most exemplary lives, and instantly dismissed those found 
unworthy. 

Although he could not brook opposition, and was like a 
raging lion to all who withstood him, there was one man, 
Anselm, the good Abbot of Bee, in whose presence he 
always became gentle and patient. 

William's end was characteristic. He died on an errand 
of vengeance. He had become corpulent during the latter 
part of his life ; and once, when ill, had been made the 
subject of a silly jest on the part of the King of France. 
William took it to heart, and on his recovery commenced 
to lay waste the border lands of France. While he was 
riding through the burning town of Mantes, his horse 
reared among the hot embers that filled the road, and he 
received injuries from the pommel of his saddle that ter- 
minated, in a few weeks, in his death at Rouen. He left 
the kingdom of England to his second son William, called 
Rufus, or the Red King, from the color of his hair. To 
Robert, the eldest son, set aside on account of a rebellion 
in which he had engaged, he gave the dukedom of Nor- 
mandy. The Conqueror's wife was Matilda, 1 daughter 
of the Earl of Flanders, and through her the present royal 
house of England traces its descent from Egbert. 

1 Ethelwolf, eldest son of Egbert, had by his first wife four sons, Alfred the Great 
being the youngest. His second wife was Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald of 
France. He was succeeded by his son Ethelbald, who also married Judith, his 
father's widow. At Ethelbald's death Judith went back to her father's court, and 
eloped with Baldwin, afterwards Earl of Flanders. Their son married Elfrida, 
daughter of Alfred the Great, and from them sprang Matilda, wife of William the 
Conqueror. 

The famous " Bayeux Tapestry " was the handiwork of Matilda. This was a 
piece of canvas sixty-eight yards long and nineteen inches wide, on which were em- 
broidered, in wool, scenes and figures giving a complete pictorial history of 
the Conquest. 



WILLIAM II 39 

WILLIAM II., 1087 TO 1100 — 13 YEARS 

Rebellion of the Barons. -At the death of the Con- 
queror, William II. hastened to England and was crowned 
by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. A rebellion of 
the barons in behalf of Robert was suppressed chiefly by 
the English, whose aid the king secured by a promise of 
good laws. William then tried by fraud and by force to 
wrest from Robert his French inheritance, but a treaty 
was finally made between them by which Robert retained 
his present possessions, and, in case of the death of either, 
the survivor was to inherit his dominions. Later in the 
reign, Robert mortgaged Normandy to the king for five 
years, to raise money to go on the First Crusade. William 
was twice engaged in hostilities with Malcolm, King of 
Scotland, forcing the latter to acknowledge William as 
his feudal superior. 

Character of William II. — The Red King had a strong 
will and great personal courage, but he was rapacious, 
prodigal, and licentious. He kept his principal minister, 
Flambard, busy devising ways and means to increase the 
royal revenue. The baronage was 'loaded with feudal 
obligations, and even the church was robbed of its wealth 
as well as its rights. He refused to fill vacant sees and 
abbeys, that he might use their incomes. The see of 
Canterbury was vacant from the death of Lanfranc, in 
1089, till 1093, when the king, being dangerously ill and 
conscience-smitten, appointed the good and learned Anselm 
to the vacancy. On recovering, the Red King returned to 
his old ways, and Anselm, withstanding for a while the 
royal tyranny, was compelled at last to leave the kingdom. 



40 THE NORMAN LINE 

The Red King met a tragic death while hunting in the 
New Forest which his father had made. He was found 
pierced in the breast with an arrow, whether by design or 
accident was never known. But he is supposed to have 
been killed by Walter Tyrrel, one of the king's party, who 
immediately fled from the country. He was succeeded by 
his younger brother Henry, Robert the elder brother not 
having returned from the Holy Land, whither he had gone 
on a Crusade. 

The Crusades. — The reign of William II. marks the 
beginning of the Crusades. These were military expedi- 
tions undertaken on a large scale by the Christian nations 
of Europe, to free the Holy Land from the rule and pres- 
ence of the Saracen. Christians from all countries, since 
the fourth century, had made long and painful pilgrimages 
to the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem, either as a penance 
for sin, or as a means of attaining to greater piety ; but 
they had been subjected to such dangers and indignities 
from the predatory infidel, that the Crusades were under- 
taken as a religious duty. 

The Crusades began in 1096, under the lead and preach- 
ing of a monk named Peter the Hermit (who had himself 
suffered while on a pilgrimage), and continued, at intervals, 
through a period of two centuries, sacrificing, it is com- 
puted, two millions of lives, and leaving the Holy Land 
still in the hands of the Saracen. 

The Benefits of the Crusades. — Though failing to accom- 
plish their primal object, the Crusades were productive 
of great good in other directions. They brought the 
Christian nations into greater harmony with one another 
by uniting them in a common cause, and also brought them 



WILLIAM II 41 

into immediate contact with the East, making them famil- 
iar with its arts, institutions, and laws, and opening to them 
its rich and varied commerce. They caused the construc- 
tion of numerous vessels for the transportation of cru- 
saders, thus stimulating shipbuilding and navigation, and 
ultimately turning men's attention from the arts of war to 
those of peace. They enlisted and sent abroad the dan- 
gerous and turbulent elements, for the most part never to 
return, making society at home safer and more peaceful. 
They struck the first great blow at the feudal system, by 
compelling the nobles to sell or divide their great estates 
to raise money for their outfit. Finally they gave birth 
to the spirit and system of chivalry, whose value at this 
period, the darkest of the Dark Ages, can hardly be over- 
estimated. 

The System of Chivalry. — During the Middle Ages 
Christianity had to a great extent lost its power over the 
hearts and lives of men. War, with all its unmeasured 
depths of vice and crime and woe, was the pastime of 
kings or the mere instrument of personal ambition and 
passion, and even peace, when it came, instead of bring- 
ing new life to art and industry, left men to sink into a 
more degrading ignorance and a still grosser superstition. 
During the Middle Ages spiritual darkness brooded over 
all the nations. Sleep, like the sleep of death, rested 
on the human intellect. The spirit of chivalry was light 
breaking upon the long and dreadful night, a clarion note 
awaking the world from the sleep of ages. It appealed to 
the nobler sentiments of the soul, inspiring the love of 
truth, honor, and religion, and enjoining the practice 
of courtesy, chastity, and humanity. 



42 THE NORMAN LINE 

Though, with its solemn oath, imposed on all who 
aspired to its honors, and its iron garb, the insignia of 
knightly character, it could not always transform rude 
and brutal men into true and chivalric knights, it did place 
upon rudeness and brutality a needed and effective check. 
Who can estimate its worth to woman, in the protection it 
gave her through those long and gloomy ages when sen- 
sual pleasure was the chief aim, and brute force the high- 
est law, known to most men ? 

The system of chivalry, both ludicrous and impractical 
in some of its features, when viewed from the standpoint 
of the present century, passed away before an advancing 
civilization ; but its spirit, enlarged and purified by true 
religion, still exists in the enlightened public sentiment of 
modern times. 1 

1 The training of youth for the duties and privileges of chivalry was long and 
arduous. The castles of nobles, especially those famed for knightly character, 
became schools of chivalry. Thither, at the age of seven or eight, gathered the 
sons of the neighboring gentry to begin their education. At the age of fourteen, 
the valets ox pages as they were called after the fifteenth century, became squires, 
exchanging the dagger, which alone they had hitherto worn, for sword and belt. At 
the age of twenty-one their education was complete, and they were entitled to re- 
ceive the guerdon of knighthood. The ceremonies attending initiation were im- 
pressive. Each candidate was first placed in the bath — a symbol of purification, 

— then clothed, successively, in a white tunic — a symbol of purity, — in a red robe 

— a symbol of the blood he would shed in defence of the true faith, — and in a black 
garment — a symbol of the death that awaited him as it awaits all men. After a 
rigid fast of twenty-four hours, he entered the church, as evening drew on, and 
passed the silent vigils of the night alone, engaged in prayer and meditation. At 
the close of the next day, which was spent in solemn religious services, the candi- 
date knelt before his lord, who gave him three blows on the shoulder with the flat 
of the sword, saying, " In the name of God, of St. Michael, and of St. George, I 
dub thee knight; be brave, bold, and loyal." Clad in full armor, with gilded spurs 
upon his heels — the emblem of knighthood, — and mounted upon a trained charger, 
he was ready to ride away to that ideal life of ancient chivalry, knightly conflict 
and romantic adventure, which song, legend, and story had painted in such bright 
colors to his ardent imagination during his long novitiate. 

The training of boys for knighthood was twofold — physical and moral. Under 






HENRY I 43 

HENRY I., 1100 TO 1135—35 YEARS 

First Charter of Liberties. — Henry I., surnamed Beau- 
clerc or the Scholar, was clearly a usurper. Being 
opposed by the barons, who espoused the cause of 
Robert, now on his way home from Palestine, Henry 
followed the example of William and fell back on the 
support of the English. He gave them a Charter of 
Liberties, in which he restored the laws of Edward the 
Confessor with the amendments made by the Conqueror. 
The various abuses of the preceding reign were named 
and forbidden ; the church was freed from unjust exac- 
tions, and the kingdom from evil customs ; and the rights 
of vassals and tenants under the feudal system were 
specially guarded. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
who had been driven from the kingdom by the persecu- 
tions of the Red King, was recalled, and Flambard, the 
Red King's hated minister, was sent to the Tower. 

To conciliate the English still further, Henry married 
Matilda, or Maud, 1 as the English loved to call her, a. 

the direction of the lords with whom they lived, they were practiced in all kinds of 
athletic exercises, such as hunting, hawking, swimming, leaping, climbing, and 
carrying weights, in the use of arms, such as the bow, sword, lance, and battle-ax, 
and in horsemanship. 

To the ladies of the castle was entrusted the care of their manners and morals. 
They were taught courtly accomplishments, and made familiar with the use of 
musical instruments and with the songs of the troubadours. They were rigidly 
trained to be obedient to their superiors, respectful to the aged, and courteous to 
all. Especially were they taught that it was essential to the character of every true 
and loyal knight to honor religion und reverence woman. Indeed, the very stand- 
ard which religion has set up for human aspiration and action is found in the 
teachings of the ideal chivalry of the Middle Ages. This is undoubtedly due to 
the influence of the enlightened clergy among the nations, who saw in the wise 
direction of the institution of chivalry a remedy for the degrading ignorance and 
barbarity of the times. 

1 When Canute seized the crown in 1017, he sent the infant sons of Edmund 



44 THE NORMAN LINE 

descendant of Edmund Ironside, thus uniting the Saxon 
and Norman families. 

Robert, Duke of Normandy. — The enthusiasm of the 
English masses, at the elevation of an English princess to 
the throne, was unbounded, and when Robert landed in 
England and raised his standard as the rightful heir to 
the crown, he found himself face to face with sixty thou- 
sand resolute English yeomen, and surrendered to Henry 
without a battle. A treaty was made between the brothers, 
Robert yielding all claims to the crown for a pension for 
himself and pardon for all his followers. And now occurs 
the darkest act of Henry's reign. Robert had no sooner 
returned to Normandy, and the barons dispersed to their 
castles, than was begun under Henry's direction the con- 
fiscation of the estates of all implicated in the rebellion. 
The chivalric Robert, indignant at the treachery of his 
brother, at once called his retainers to arms and renewed 
the war. The king, claiming that the treaty had been 
broken, invaded Normandy, defeated Robert's army, took 
Robert himself prisoner, and doomed him to lifelong con- 
finement within the walls of Cardiff Castle. It is affirmed 
that when he had once attempted to escape, Henry caused 
his eyes to be put out with a hot iron. This noblest of 
the sons of the Conqueror lingered twenty-nine years in 
sightless confinement, dying at last in his dungeon, an old 
man of eighty years. 

Character and Reign of Henry. — Henry's character was 

Ironside to Germany. The Confessor, on coming to the throne twenty-five years 
later, invited Edward, the only survivor of these sons, to return to England. Ed- 
ward died soon after his arrival, and his family, at the coming of William the 
Conqueror, took refuge in Scotland, where his daughter Margaret married King 
Malcolm. Maud was the offspring of this marriage. 



HENRY I 45 

a strange admixture of virtues and vices. He was unscru- 
pulous, false-hearted, and revengeful, but he promoted the 
welfare of his people, encouraged manufactures, improved 
the coinage, established a system of weights and measures, 
repealed the odious law of the curfew, and reorganized the 
courts of justice. Henry's system of justice, with modifi- 
cations and improvements, is the system of to-day, both in 
England and in America. He dealt a heavy blow at the 
feudal system, and gave an impulse to liberty, when he 
endowed the great towns with charters of freedom. 

The White Ship. — The last years of Henry's life were 
sad and gloomy, on account of the death by shipwreck of 
his only son, Prince William. They had been on a visit 
to Normandy, to secure the acknowledgment of the prince 
as heir to the crown, and to complete his marriage con- 
tract with the daughter of the Count of Anjou. Both 
matters being satisfactorily arranged, they embarked for 
the return, on different ships. The White Ship, in which 
William had taken passage, being delayed, attempted to 
overtake the rest of the fleet by moonlight. Speeding 
swiftly along under the sweep of its fifty rowers, it struck 
on a rock in the race of Alderney and went to the bot- 
tom. Only a single soul escaped to tell the sad tale to 
the bereaved father, who is said never to have smiled 
again. 

Henry left a daughter Matilda, whom he had married 
to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Earl of Anjou, to strengthen his 
possessions beyond the channel. Before she could return 
to England to take the crown that belonged to her, it was 
seized by Stephen, Count of Blois, nephew of the late 
king. Affable in his manners and familiar in his address, 



46 THE NORMAN LINE 

Stephen had made himself a general favorite with the 
people of the capital, and so paved his way to power. 

STEPHEN, 1135 TO 1154 — 19 YEARS 

Civil War. — Matilda endeavored to secure her rights 
by force of arms. David, King of Scotland, was the first 
to espouse her cause. With an army of wild and lawless 
Highlanders, he invaded the northern counties, inflicting 
havoc alike on the friends and foes of Matilda. Against 
this army of marauders the Archbishop of York took the 
field, and, in the battle of the Standard, put them to utter 
rout and drove them across the border. Matilda herself 
reached England the next year with a small force, and her 
adherents quickly gathered to her support. In the battle 
of Lincoln the army of Stephen was defeated, and Stephen 
himself was captured and sent in chains to Bristol Castle. 

Matilda entered London and was acknowledged queen 
of England. But her haughty manners and violent tem- 
per, so much in contrast with the generous and good- 
natured ways of Stephen, soon changed even her friends 
to foes. The rapid approach of Stephen's heroic queen at 
the head of an army, and the ringing of the alarm bells in 
London, having caused a sudden uprising of the people, 
Matilda fled in haste from the city and took refuge within 
the walls of Oxford Castle. 

Stephen, once more at liberty and at the head of his 
army, in 1142 surrounded her place of refuge, so disposing 
his men as, apparently, to cut off every avenue of escape. 
The garrison ran short of provisions, and Matilda, with 
three devoted knights, clad like herself in white to resemble 



STEPHEN 47 

the snow that covered the ground (for it was midwinter), 
passed silently through the lines of Stephen's army in the 
night, crossed the frozen Thames, and found refuge among 
the loyal people of the west, whence, four years later, she 
withdrew to France. Her son Henry had now grown up 
to manhood. Possessed, by inheritance and marriage, of 
the larger part of France, he collected an army of his own 
subjects, crossed the channel, and reopened the war with 
Stephen. 

Compromise between Stephen and Henry. — But the bish- 
ops of England, under the lead of Theobald, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, weary of a struggle which had brought such 
fearful waste, and to which they could see no end, finally, 
in 1 153, brought about the Treaty of Wallingford. It was 
mutually agreed that the crown should remain with Stephen 
while he lived, and descend to Henry at his death. It was 
also decided that the grants of crown lands made by 
Stephen should be canceled, the new castles demolished, 
and the foreign troops dismissed. 

The Robber Barons. — Two things influenced Stephen 
to consent to this arrangement : the death of his eldest 
son, and the defection of his principal nobles, some of 
whom had turned against him, while more had abandoned 
the contest and retired to their estates. We find here a 
practical illustration of the workings of the feudal system. 
To win the support of the barons, Stephen had, at the 
beginning of his reign, given them permission to build new 
castles on their estates, besides granting new titles of no- 
bility to his chosen adherents. One hundred and twenty- 
six fortresses were thus erected, many of them of great 
strength and frowning from inaccessible heights. Secure 



48 THE NORMAN LINE 

in these, the barons lived like petty princes, defying the 
authority of the king, and renewing old family quarrels. 
They plundered the country around their estates, and 
taxed its inhabitants till famine stared them in the face. 
Even churches were robbed of their wealth. The rich were 
waylaid as they journeyed, and held or tortured for ransom. 
These nobles have gained in history the well-deserved title 
of Robber Barons. 

The Outlaws of the Forest. — Following their example, 
criminals and outcasts, unemployed soldiers and starving 
peasants, everywhere took to the woods and became out- 
laws, making it dangerous to travel in some districts with- 
out an armed escort. Banded together, sometimes in large 
numbers, they set laws and authorities at defiance, or, re- 
treating to their hiding places in the dense recesses of the 
forest, were safe from pursuit. While many of these ban- 
dits were rude and ruthless men, sparing neither age nor 
sex, others were generous and courteous, robbing the rich 
to relieve the wants of the poor. Such was Robin Hood, 
the very prince of bandits, who, some fifty years later, 
in the reign of Richard I., with a hundred free and jovial 
companions, occupied the depths of the Sherwood forest. 

It is difficult to depict the anarchy and misery to which 
England was reduced in the reign of Stephen. Towns 
were abandoned, farms were left to decay, the sanctuaries 
were crowded with helpless starving people, and thousands 
fled, in terror, to foreign countries. 

Stephen lived but a year after the Treaty of Wallingford, 
and Henry came to the throne unopposed, assuming, for 
the royal line which he founded, the family name of Plan- 
tagenet. 



CHAPTER V 

Plantagenet Family, 1154 to 1485 — 331 Years 

HENRY II. I EDWARD II., of Caernarvon 
RICHARD I., Cceur-de-Lion EDWARD III. 

JOHN, Lackland RICHARD II., of Bordeaux 

HENRY III., of Winchester HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

EDWARD I. I HOUSE OF YORK 

HENRY II., 1154 TO 1189 — 35 YEARS 

The Condition of England. — No king ever mounted the 
English throne under circumstances more peculiar, and, in 
some respects, more appalling, than greeted the first Plan- 
tagenet on his accession to power. During the reign of 
Stephen, the entire fabric of society had fallen to pieces, 
and both regard for law and respect for religion had been 
swept away in the general wreck. Beginning with the 
nobility, the spirit of lawlessness had permeated the priest- 
hood and the peasantry. It is no wonder the helpless 
peasant either became an outlaw, or, in consternation, 
abandoned home and harvest field and fled beyond seas, 
when even nobles became robbers ! This was the peculiar 
and appalling aspect of the case, that the best and highest 
elements in society had become, for the time being, most 
demoralized. Henry, though but twenty-one years of age 
when he ascended the throne, undertook the work of recon- 
struction with a courage and an intelligence that challenge 
our admiration. His efforts were mainly directed to the 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 4 49 



50 THE PLANTAGENETS 

accomplishment of two distinct ends, the establishment of 
order, and the correction of the abuses of the church. 

The Establishment of Order. — The Robber Barons were, 
one after another, subdued, their castles being razed to the 
ground ; and the less noble but no worse highwaymen, the 
forest outlaws, were mercilessly hunted down. The crown 
lands were reclaimed, and foreign soldiers were expelled. 
To increase the power of the crown, and weaken that of 
the baronage still more, two sweeping edicts were issued. 
One, in 1 1 59, substituted the payment of money, called 
" shield money," for the personal services of the barons in 
time of war, enabling the king to keep a paid and stand- 
ing force. The other, in 1181, restored the militia, mak- 
ing every freeman a soldier, always to be suitably armed, 
and subject to the call of the king in time of national 
danger. ' 

Contest between Church and State. — Henry's contest 
with the church was not only more difficult, but more dan- 
gerous, than that with the barons. Anciently, judges and 
bishops sat together on the civil benches, but the Con- 
queror had established separate courts for ecclesiastical 
cases, over which the bishops presided alone. Criminals 
in holy orders were thus put beyond the reach of the civil 
authorities, and as, by a canon of the church, the priest- 
hood could not impose the death penalty upon one of their 
own order, these clerical criminals were also put beyond 
the reach of extreme punishment. It is not surprising 
that the clergy had, to some extent, become independent, 
or that one hundred murders were proved to have been 
committed, during the first few years of Henry's reign, by 
priests, who suffered either no punishment, or one not at 



HENRY II 51 

all commensurate with the crime — generally some trifling 
penance or degradation in office. 

The Council of Clarendon. — At the summons. of the 
king, a council of nobles and prelates met at the Castle 
of Clarendon in 1164. It was decided by this council, 
among other things, that the civil courts should have a 
certain jurisdiction over the church courts, and that law- 
breaking priests, on conviction in the latter, should be 
stripped of their orders and turned over to the civil 
authorities for punishment. 

Thomas a Becket had been Henry's bosom friend and 
companion. Henry had raised him from poverty to afflu- 
ence, from the position of his children's tutor to that of 
Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest office of the church 
in England. Becket at first accepted, then rejected the 
" Constitutions of Clarendon " ; and then began that long 
and bitter struggle between him and the king, in which 
personal animosities are strangely mingled with the 
graver affairs of church and state, ending in the violent 
death of Becket in 11 70, and the ultimate triumph of the 
king. The priesthood and the laity were made equal 
before the law. The supremacy of the state in civil 
matters was achieved. Although, after the death of 
Becket, the king assented to a modification of the " Con- 
stitutions," it was merely nominal, the practice of the 
courts and the submission of the bishops showing that 
the king retained all the substantial fruits of victory. 

The Death of Thomas a Becket. — The death of Becket 
was tragic. Four knights in attendance on the king in 
Normandy, interpreting too seriously his rash and impa- 
tient wish " to be rid of the turbulent priest," silently left 



52 THE PL ANT A GENETS 

the royal presence, and secretly crossed the English Chan- 
nel. Making their way to the gray old Cathedral of 
Canterbury, — where shortly before, on Christmas day, 
Becket, sad but undismayed, had preached to the peasantry 
from the text, " I come to die among you," — the knightly 
assassins, backed by their followers, murdered him before 
his own altar. A cry of horror arose from all Christendom. 
For the first time during the bitter struggle Henry bent 
before the storm. He disclaimed all responsibility for the 
crime, and afterward publicly expressed his sorrow for its 
commission, by walking barefoot to the tomb of Becket 
and submitting his back to the scourge of the monks ; and 
the threatened excommunication was averted. The guilty 
knights went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where they 
died ; and on their tomb was inscribed this epitaph, " Here 
lie the wretches who murdered St. Thomas of Canterbury." 
The Judiciary System. — One of the most interesting 
works of Henry's reign was the improvement of the judi- 
ciary system founded by Henry I. England was divided 
into six judicial districts, each with three itinerant judges, 
who went regularly on their circuits, having jurisdiction 
alike over peasant and noble. The most radical change 
was made in the form of trial. The Anglo-Saxons brought 
with them from Germany a form of trial called Compurga- 
tion. A person charged with crime was acquitted or con- 
victed, according as his kinsmen or neighbors, generally 
twelve, or some multiple of twelve in number, made oath 
to his innocence or guilt. Another and very singular 
method of trial was called the Judgment of God. Among 
other things, if a suspected person could carry a bar of red- 
hot iron a certain distance, or plunge his hand into boiling 



HENRY II 53 

water, and in three days show no scar, he was pronounced 
innocent ; otherwise, guilty. Sometimes he was thrown 
into deep water, and if he sank, he was innocent, if he 
swam, guilty. The Conqueror introduced Wager of Battle, 
or Single Combat. An accused person was allowed to 
challenge his accuser to mortal combat, and if he came 
out of the fight victorious, he was declared innocent ; 
otherwise, guilty. 

"The first clear beginnings" of Trial by Jury are found 
in the reign of Henry II., when, by the Assize of Claren- 
don, in 1166, twelve freemen chosen from the hundred, 
and four from each township, acting in the twofold 
capacity of judges and witnesses, presented reputed crim- 
inals for the ordeal of battle or the judgment of God. 
By the same Assize, compurgation was abolished. 1 

Henry's Foreign Possessions. — Before his accession to 
the English throne, Henry had extensive possessions in 

1 Trial by jury has sometimes been attributed to Alfred the Great; but there 
is every reason to believe that the jurors of Alfred's time, like those of other 
Saxon kings, were only compurgators. For fifty years after Henry's Assize, the 
only forms of trial used after presentment by the jury were the ordeal of battle 
and the judgment of God. At the Fourth Lateran Council, held at Rome in 1216, 
Henry III. being King of England, all ordeals were abolished and went rapidly 
out of use; but the English statute authorizing the ordeal of battle was not 
repealed till 1818. The year before, a man charged with the crime of murder 
claimed the right, under the ancient law, to challenge his accuser to mortal com- 
bat, which the court allowed. Many steps have been required to bring trial by 
jury to its present perfection. In the reign of Edward I., persons especially 
acquainted with the facts in any case presented for trial were added to the jury. 
But as early as the reign of Edward III. the jury was divided into two distinct 
bodies of jurors and witnesses, the jurors ceasing to be special witnesses, though 
they still made use of their personal knowledge of the facts in making up a ver- 
dict, and the added witnesses ceasing to be jurors. From this time the witnesses 
merely gave testimony, and the jurors decided whether it was sufficiently grave 
to warrant the indictment of the accused. Thus was the way opened for the 
rise of the petty jury, as triers of the issue, and the limitation of the original jury 
to the work of presentment. In the reign of Charles II. the principle was estab- 



54 THE PLANT AGENETS 

France. He inherited Maine and Anjou from his father, 
and Normandy from his mother. Poitou, Aquitaine, and 
Gascony he acquired by marriage with Eleanor, the 
divorced wife of the King of France. As Duke of 
Normandy he had a right to the feudal superiority of 
Brittany. 

English dominion in Ireland dates from Henry's reign. 
Shortly after his accession he secured the sanction of 
Pope Adrian IV. for the conquest of the island. Oppo- 
sition among the English barons forced the king to 
forego the execution of his plans for a season ; but the 
scheme of conquest was renewed when Dermod, King of 
Leinster, having been driven from his kingdom, sought 
the help of Henry, whom he acknowledged as his feudal 
superior. A small force under Fitz Stephen, a Welsh 
knight, landed on the island in 1169, followed by a 
larger one under " Strongbovv," Earl of Pembroke. The 
capture of Dublin, the marriage of " Strongbow " with 
the daughter of Dermod, and the death of Dermod him- 
self, left the English in full possession of the kingdom 
of Leinster. " Strongbow " at first assumed royal author- 
ity, but this he was forced to surrender to Henry, who 

lished that jurors shall not be called in question on account of their verdict; and 
in the reign of George IV. it was enacted that "jurors need only be good and 
lawful men of the body of the country." 

In the jury as established by the Assize of Henry II., though nominally a jury 
of presentment, we find the germs of the trial jury. Presentment in certain crimi- 
nal cases was equivalent to conviction ; for, though the suspected person safely 
passed the ordeal that followed presentment, if he was charged with murder or 
other felonious crime, or was of bad reputation, he was compelled to abjure the 
realm. Thus Henry's jury performed, to a certain extent, the functions of both 
grand and trial juries. It is not to be wondered at, then, that its verdict was 
awaited by the prisoner and his friends with much the same anxiety that, in 
criminal cases, attends the action of the trial jury at the present time. 



HENRY II 55 

came over in 1171 and received the homage of most of 
the chiefs and bishops. Though Ireland was nominally 
conquered, English authority was lightly regarded by the 
Irish chieftains for hundreds of years. 

Rebellions under Henry's Sons. — The last years of 
Henry's life were full of trouble. He had four surviving 
sons, Henry, Geoffrey, Richard, and John. Encouraged 
by their mother, and also by the King of France, whose 
daughter Prince Henry had married, these unnatural sons 
repeatedly made war on their father, seeking to wrest 
from him portions of his dominions. Prince Henry as- 
pired to sovereign power in England or Normandy, Rich- 
ard was ambitious to rule over Aquitaine, and Geoffrey 
claimed possession of Brittany. In one of the most for- 
midable of these rebellions, in 11 73, they were aided 
by the kings of Scotland and France. It was at this 
time that King Henry, to propitiate divine favor, per- 
formed his penance at the tomb of a Becket. William, 
King of Scotland, was captured by the English the very 
day the royal penance was completed, and was not 
released until he consented to acknowledge himself a 
vassal of the English crown. It was on this acknowl- 
edgment that Edward I. afterward based his claim to 
the sovereignty of Scotland. 

In the last rebellion, Henry was compelled to submit 
to the most humiliating terms. After the treaty of peace 
was signed, the king, who was sick in bed, asked to see 
the list of rebels he had agreed to pardon, and the first 
name that met his eye was that of John, his youngest 
and his favorite son. He turned his face to the wall, 
heartbroken, saying, " Now let the world go as it will, 



56 THE PLANTAGENETS 

I care for nothing more." He died soon after and was 
succeeded by his eldest son then surviving, Richard. 

RICHARD I., 1189 TO 1199 — 10 YEARS 

Slaughter of Jews. — Richard's inauguration took place 
in the midst of a cruel slaughter of Jews. They had 
come to the coronation with rich gifts to propitiate the 
royal favor. A cry having gone forth that the king had 
decreed their death, they were beset by an ignorant and 
bloodthirsty rabble. Blood once shed, passions once in- 
flamed, these hated but helpless people were mercilessly 
slaughtered, and their dwellings were burned, throughout 
the city. As the news spread from town to town, the same 
terrible scenes were enacted, the same horrible butchery 
of innocent people. At York, five hundred Jews, with 
their families, took refuge in the castle, which was speedily 
surrounded by an armed force. The Jews vainly offered 
their wealth as a ransom for their lives. Having no hope 
of mercy, they plunged their daggers into the bodies of 
their own wives and children, rather than see them fall 
into the hands of their infuriated enemies. Richard had 
accepted their gifts, but, though he issued a proclamation 
in their favor, he took no adequate measures for their 
protection. 

Richard in the Holy Land. — The Christian nations were 
preparing for the Third Crusade. Richard and Philip of 
France arranged to go in company, at the head of their 
forces. To raise sufficient money for his outfit, Richard 
freely offered for sale the lands of the crown, besides 
titles, offices, and pardons. At the rebuke of one of his 
friends, on account of his wholesale disposal of crown 






RICHARD I 57 

property, he is said to have exclaimed, " I would sell Lon- 
don, if I could find a purchaser." 

His career in the Holy Land is full of the stirring inci- 
dents of battle and adventure. He captured Acre and 
defeated Saladin, the great Saracen, at Ascalon. Philip, 
jealous of Richard's growing fame, abandoned the Crusade 
and returned to France. John, Richard's brother, proba- 
bly instigated by Philip, usurped the government of Eng- 
land, and was planning to seize the crown, when Richard, 
alarmed for the safety of his kingdom, prepared to return 
home. Effecting a treaty with Saladin, by which pilgrims 
could visit the Holy Sepulcher unmolested, Richard reluc- 
tantly turned his back upon Jerusalem, the goal of many 
hopes, whose walls were, indeed, in sight, but within which 
he was destined never to enter. 

Richard a Captive in the Tyrol. — Being wrecked in the 
Adriatic, and attempting to make his way overland to 
England to escape the cruisers of Philip, he fell into the 
hands of an enemy, who turned him over to the Emperor 
of Germany. After lying a captive for more than a year 
in the Tyrol, he was released on the payment by the Eng- 
lish people of one hundred thousand marks as ransom. 
The English people were reduced to the greatest distress 
to raise the money, the churches even melting down their 
plate. Richard returned in 1194, after an absence of four 
years. " Take care of yourself," wrote Philip to John, who 
hastened to leave the country. But returning at Richard's 
command, he confessed on his knees his traitorous designs, 
and humbly asked for pardon. Said Lion Heart with 
characteristic generosity, " I hope I shall as easily forget 
his ingratitude, as he will my forbearance." 



58 THE PLANTAGENETS 

War with France and Death of Richard. — Richard re- 
mained in England a few months, and then crossed the 
channel to wage war with Philip. Learning that the Vis- 
count of Limoges, one of his vassals, had found hidden 
treasure in one of his fields, Richard demanded its sur- 
render, under the common law that made treasure-trove 
the property of the crown. The demand was refused, and 
Richard at once besieged the viscount in his castle of 
Chalus. During the siege he received a mortal wound 
and died, as he had lived, in armor. Though ten years 
king of England, he had spent less than one year in his 
kingdom. 

Character of Richard I. — Richard Cceur-de-Lion, or the 
Lion Heart, was a valiant and romantic knight, who loved 
tilts and tournaments better than royal courts, daring deeds 
on hard-fought battlefields better than the irksome cares 
and dry details of government. His very name, embalmed 
in song and story, has become a synonym for chivalry. In 
Richard the king was subordinate to the knight, and since 
he made so poor a king, it would doubtless please the 
young who may read this book, could we represent him 
as at least a model knight, famous for humanity and 
true nobility, as well as matchless valor. But beneath 
Richard's iron armor there beat a hard, cold, selfish heart. 
Though fearless of danger and mighty in battle, courteous 
to a gallant enemy and generous to a fallen foe, a skilled 
musician familiar with the songs of the troubadours, Rich- 
ard was brutal and unscrupulous, and stained his knightly 
honor by many a dark and cruel deed. He cared little for 
the happiness or welfare of his people, the power to gratify 
an inordinate love of military glory and daring adventure 



JOHN 59 

being the limit of his ambition. Though dazzled by his 
brilliant personal qualities, and proud of his world-wide 
renown, England mingled a sense of relief with a sigh of 
regret when her roving soldier king, whose genius had 
both impoverished and glorified her, rested forever at 
Fontevrault. 

JOHN, 1199 TO 1216—17 YEARS 

Character of John. — John the craven heart was as base 
and cowardly as Richard the Lion Heart was generous 
and knightly. He had, indeed, a brazen boldness in the 
midst of safety, but it quickly vanished at the presence of 
danger. Though grossly impious in his treatment of the 
sacred rites of the church, he was accustomed to wear 
charms and consecrated relics about his person as a safe- 
guard against evil. Other English kings were licentious, 
but there is no king in all the list so basely licentious as 
he. Destitute alike of virtue and honor, he respected 
neither the purity of woman nor the sanctity of home. 

Loss of Possessions in France. — He is generally believed 
to have murdered, with his own hand, his nephew Arthur, 
a boy of fifteen and the rightful heir to the throne, and to 
have kept Eleanor, sister to Arthur, in close confinement 
till she wasted away and died. In retaliation for his treat- 
ment of Arthur, he was stripped of all his possessions on 
the continent by the King of France, and was ever after 
called Lackland. To recover them, he raised a large army 
and invaded the territories of France. When the opposing 
armies were on the eve of battle, John proposed peace 
and ignominiously fled to England in the very midst of 
negotiations. 



60 THE PLANTAGENETS 

John's Quarrel with the Pope. — John quarreled with the 
Pope about the appointment of an Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. He had secured the election, by the monks, of John 
de Gray, but Pope Innocent III. appointed Stephen Lang- 
ton. The monks, submitting to the decision of their 
superior and recognizing Langton, were turned out of 
doors and reduced to beggary by the enraged tyrant. 

He made light of the papal threat to lay the kingdom 
under an interdict, and when it fell, in 1208, with all its 
horrors, upon the land, he alone seemed insensible to the 
blow. The Pope waited one year and then issued against 
John, who still remained obdurate, a bull of excommunica- 
tion. Even this had no terrors for John, and in about 
three years more was launched against him the last and 
crowning decree of the church, that of deposition. 1 Philip 
of France was specially commissioned with the execution 
of this final decree. 

John's Submission to the Pope. — For a while John con- 
tinued defiant. But when Philip had assembled a great 
army ready for invasion, with seventeen hundred ships for 
its transportation across the channel, and the elements of 

1 It is difficult to realize at this day the effects of the Papal Interdict. To the 
people, it was nothing less than the curse of God. All England was at once 
plunged into deepest gloom, for the blessings and benedictions of religion were 
suddenly withdrawn from all except the unconscious infant and the dying. For 
four long years it was as though a pestilence had swept over the. land. The churches 
were closed, and their bells hung motionless in the belfries. " No knell was lolled 
for the dead; for the dead remained unburied. No merry peals welcomed the 
bridal procession ; for no couple could be joined in wedlock." 

Excommunication adds but little to the miseries entailed by the interdict, except 
to the one who suffers it. According to the tenets of the church and universal be- 
lief at that age, an excommunicated person was cut off from all hope of Heaven as 
well as all fellowship in the church on earth. 

The decree of deposition absolved the people from their allegiance, the throne 
being declared vacant. 



JOHN 6 1 

opposition at home were beginning to gather like a dark 
cloud about him, his bravado forsook him, and his sub- 
mission to the Pope was sudden and complete. 

Said William the Conqueror, when Pope Gregory VII. 
called on him to do fealty for his realm, " Fealty I have 
never willed to do, nor do I will to do it now. I have never 
promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors did it to 
yours." Every true Englishman experienced a share of 
the national shame, when the degenerate descendant of the 
Conqueror, on his knees, at the feet of the papal legate, 
acknowledged himself a vassal, and his kingdom a fief of 
the Papacy. It was the first and the last time, in its history 
of over a thousand years, that a king of England surren- 
dered to a foreign potentate the independence of his 
country. 

Magna Charta, A.D. 1215. — With John's submission, 
the papal decrees were recalled and the French invasion 
stayed. Elated at the ease with which he had escaped 
the threatened danger, and relying on the support of the 
Pope, whose servant he had become, John next undertook 
to punish the barons for refusing to join him in a fresh 
war with France. Three years of royal outrage brought 
affairs to a crisis. A league, formed in secret among the 
barons, culminated in a general muster of their forces, and 
John suddenly found himself face to face with all England 
in arms. 

On the 15th of June, 12 15, in the valley of Runny- 
mede, — some say on an island in the Thames, — the en- 
raged but helpless tyrant king was forced to sign Magna 
Charta, the most remarkable instrument known in Eng- 
lish history. It was not entirely new. Some of its most 



62 THE PLANTAGENETS 

important principles can be traced to Anglo-Saxon origin, 
having been set aside by the Norman conquest. Others 
were brought from the reigns of the Henries, but all were 
made more broad and liberal and couched in more explicit 
terms. The two most important sections run as follows: — 

Section 45. " No freeman shall be taken, or disseized, 
or outlawed, or banished, or anywise injured, nor will we 
pass upon him, nor send upon him, unless by the legal 
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." 

Section 46. " We will sell to no man, we will not deny 
or delay to any man, right or justice." 

In other sections the royal prerogative was limited and 
defined ; the rights of the church guaranteed ; the feudal 
system relieved of some of its grievances ; unlawful fines 
and punishments forbidden ; the free disposal of personal 
property by will allowed ; and the means of obtaining a 
livelihood, such as the tools of the mechanic and the goods 
of the merchant, were exempted from fine or forfeiture for 
crime. Fines were to be proportioned to the offense ; the 
circuit courts were brought into the neighborhood of all ; 
and the liberties and customs of free towns were confirmed. 

So far only freemen were benefited. The larger part 
of the people of England were serfs, and but two sections 
related directly to them. In one of these, agricultural im- 
plements were exempted from fine or forfeiture on account 
of crime, and in the other, guardians were charged, in the 
management of the property of their wards, " to make no 
destruction or waste of the men and things." 

Such is a partial notice of the Great Charter, called by 
Hallam " the keystone of English liberty." The people 
of England did not realize, for hundreds of years to come, 



JOHN 63 

all the benefits conferred by the Great Charter. Its pro- 
visions were often ignored and openly trodden under foot 
by John and his successors, but the great principles of 
justice and liberty which they embodied were never for- 
gotten by the people. They became, amidst the oppres- 
sions of after times, the centers around which clustered 
national hopes, the goal toward which were directed na- 
tional efforts. They were so many beacon lights in an 
almost shoreless sea of misrule, guiding an oppressed peo- 
ple in their struggle for freedom. They are to-day the 
basis and the bulwark of those rights and immunities that 
make England and America the most free and happy 
countries on the earth. 

Patriotism of the Bishops of England. — The rest of 
John's ignoble history is soon told. He surrounded him- 
self with foreign soldiers, for the double purpose of taking 
vengeance on the barons, who had been the authors, and 
were now the guardians, of the Charter, and of overthrow- 
ing the Charter itself. John was assisted by the Pope, 
who, as overlord of England, annulled the Charter and 
excommunicated all who sustained it. The patriotism of 
Archbishop Langton and most of the bishops of the 
English church, at this period, should never be forgotten. 
Langton himself became the leader of the barons in their 
opposition to the tyranny of John and the dictations of 
the Pope. He first presented to them, at a preliminary 
meeting, the charter of Henry I. as a basis for their 
demands. The bishops and the barons stood side by side 
at Runnymede, alike indifferent to the execrations of the 
king and the anathemas of the Pope. In the midst of the 
contest, John suddenly died. Overtaken by the incoming 



64 THE PLANTAGENETS 

tide, as he was crossing a treacherous place by the sea- 
side, called the Wash, his treasure and material were 
swept away, and his army thrown into confusion. Vexa- 
tion and exposure threw him into a fever, of which he died 
in a few days in the Castle of Newark, where he had 
found shelter. 

HENRY III., 1216 TO 1272 — 56 YEARS 

The Regency. — The Earl of Pembroke was appointed 
Regent, and under his vigorous rule England was soon 
reduced to order. Louis, a prince of France, who, in the 
midst of the struggle with John, had been invited by the 
barons to assume the English crown, soon left the country 
with all his followers. The Charter was confirmed, and the 
severities of the forest laws were mitigated by the substitu- 
tion of fine and imprisonment, instead of mutilation and 
death, for killing the king's deer. Unfortunately, in 1219, 
the able Pembroke died, and Hubert de Burgh was ap- 
pointed Regent. Henry became of age in 1227, and 
assumed royal functions at once. He placed foreigners in 
all the principal offices of the state, to the great disgust 
of his own people. The Pope, too, as overlord of Eng- 
land, filled the vacant livings with foreign priests, and 
even demanded a share in the government. Hubert de 
Burgh, though retained in the office of Regent, had no 
real power, and little influence, and at last, falling under 
the severe displeasure of the king, was in 1232 removed 
from office and even thrown into the Tower. 

Redress, the Condition of a Vote of Supplies. — In 1225 
a great council was summoned to consider the question of 
supplies to the crown. A grant was made conditioned on 



HENRY III 65 

a new confirmation of the Charter. From this time the 
practice prevailed of making a confirmation of the Charter, 
or a redress of grievances, the condition of a vote of 
money to the crown. Some of the most precious rights 
now enjoyed by the English people were retained or 
acquired in this way. 

Henry's Attempt to Overthrow the Charter. — Henry 
inaugurated his full assumption of power by an attempt, 
in the following declaration, to make the Great Charter 
subordinate to royal prerogative : — 

" Whenever and wherever, and as often as it may be 
our pleasure, we may declare, interpret, enlarge or dimin- 
ish the aforesaid statutes, and their several parts, by our 
own free will, and as to us shall seem expedient for the 
security of us and our land." 

This declaration was the keynote to Henry's policy for 
forty years, while the barons, on account of feuds among 
themselves, stood idly by. The history of the whole 
period is but a dreary and monotonous record of royal 
recklessness and folly, of royal beggary and extortion. 
The king, when in need of money, would swear on his 
honor as "a man, a christian, a knight, and a king," to 
preserve inviolate the provisions of the Charter, and the 
next moment, when his wants had been supplied, he would 
trample the Charter, in mere wantonness, under his feet. 
Under the royal influence, even the courts of justice be- 
came but a legalized system of extortion and robbery, the 
judges on the circuits compounding felonies and selling 
justice to the highest bidder. 

Rebellion of the Barons. — In 1258 a crisis was reached. 
There had been a failure in the crops, and a famine was 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 5 



66 THE PLANTAGENETS 

imminent. Corn, sent from Germany to relieve the gen- 
eral distress, was seized and sold by the king ; and being 
still in want, he summoned the barons to a great council 
at Westminster. Aroused by outrage and united at last, 
they obeyed the summons, but they came at the head of 
their men-at-arms. As Henry entered the great hall at 
Westminster and looked upon the stern array of mail-clad 
barons, whose clanking swords alone broke the stillness, 
he asked in the suddenness of his alarm, " Am I a pris- 
oner?" "No, you are our sovereign," was the answer; 
" but your foreign favorites and your prodigality have 
brought misery upon the realm, and we demand that you 
confer authority upon those who are able and willing to 
redress the grievances of the public." Henry was power- 
less to resist, and consented to a commission of twenty-four 
barons, one half to be appointed by himself, empowered 
to act in behalf of the realm. But all attempts at a 
permanent settlement failed, and both parties finally pre- 
pared for war. In 1264 the opposing armies met on the 
downs of Lewes. The royal army was defeated, and the 
king and his gallant son, Prince Edward, were taken 
prisoners. 

Simon de Montfort and the House of Commons, A.D. 
1265. — The kingdom was now at the disposal of the 
barons. The ablest man among them was Simon de 
Montfort, Earl of Leicester, whose brief but brilliant 
career furnishes the one bright page in the black record 
of Henry's reign. In a Parliament, summoned by Mont- 
fort, at Westminster, in 1265, he invited representatives of 
the people, two knights from each county, two citizens from 
each city, and two burgesses from each borough (anciently 



EDWARD I 67 

a community of ten families, now a town) to take their 
seats side by side with prelates and barons. This was the 
first House of Commons. As from the tyranny of John 
sprang the Great Charter, the corner stone of English 
liberty, so from the oppressions of Henry rose the House 
of Commons, its bulwark and defense. 

Evesham. — Prince Edward, having escaped from captiv- 
ity, quickly assembled the royal forces, won the battle of 
Evesham, and placed the liberated king once more on the 
throne. Though the barons were beaten and the noble 
de Montfort slain, no attempt was made to undo their one 
great work, the establishment of the right of the people 
to representation in Parliament. Order being restored, 
Prince Edward went on a Crusade, the last in the series, 
in 1270. In two years Henry died, and the same day the 
nobles took the oath of fealty to the absent prince. In 
two years more King Edward, having made a ten years' 
truce with the Saracens, returned to England and was 
formally crowned at Westminster. 

EDWARD I., 1272 TO 1307 — 35 YEARS 

Conquest of Wales. — Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, had 
repeatedly refused to acknowledge Edward as his feudal 
superior. In 1277 an English army was sent into Wales, 
and the prince, deserted by most of his chieftains, was 
compelled to sue for peace and accept Edward's terms, 
the surrender of the sovereignty of his country. In 1282 
the Welsh people, fired by patriotic bards whose stirring 
songs had kept alive in their hearts the love of liberty, 
rose in rebellion against their English rulers. Edward 



68 THE PLANTAGENETS 

once more invaded the country at the head of an irresist- 
ible force, and Llewellyn being early slain in a skirmish, 
the Welsh chieftains quietly submitted, and the country 
was formally annexed to England. Edward wisely gave 
the Welsh people the English system of courts and laws, 
and for a hundred years, with a single exception, they 
remained at peace. Edward's queen, who had accom- 
panied him on the march, gave birth, in the castle of 
Caernarvon, to a son, some twenty years afterward called 
Prince of Wales, a title still given to the eldest son of the 
reigning sovereign. Returning to England, Edward de- 
voted himself to the administration of the government. 
He secured the adoption of a code of wise and wholesome 
laws, 1 thereby winning in history the name of the English 
Justinian. 

Arbitrary Taxation Forbidden. — By far the most im- 
portant of these laws was passed in the year 1297, when 
by excessive and arbitrary taxation Edward had provoked 
a rebellious confederation of the barons. He was com- 
pelled to assent to a new confirmation of the Charter and 
the addition of a clause forbidding the king to tax the 
people without the consent of Parliament. Edward not 
only made wise laws but he greatly improved the courts, 2 

1 Among these were laws basing more thoroughly than ever the defense of the 
kingdom on an armed militia, ever at the immediate call of the king ; insuring the 
freedom of elections against menace or forcible interference ; forbidding judges 
and officers to receive rewards for official services, lawyers to use deceit to beguile 
the court, persons to utter slanders, and jurors to render a false verdict ; requiring 
the gates of walled towns to be kept shut from sunset to sunrise, and a watch to be 
set ; ordering every man to cut away the bushes and undergrowth on his own land, 
two hundred feet on each side of the principal roads, to make an ambush by high- 
waymen difficult ; and a statute for London forbidding armed men to appear in 
the streets, or taverns to sell ale or beer after curfew. 

2 The ecclesiastical courts were confined to purely spiritual matters. The 
county court was undisturbed, but by the appointment of " Justices of the Peace " 



EDWARD I 69 

rendering the administration of justice more sure and 
equal. 

Beginning of the Wars with Scotland. — The King of 
Scotland having died, thirteen claimants appeared for the 
vacant throne, of whom Robert Bruce and John Baliol 
were the most prominent. As they were unable to settle 
the question of their claims, it was referred, in 1291, to the 
arbitration of Edward of England. Edward decided in 
favor of Baliol, on condition that the latter should acknowl- 
edge himself a vassal of the English crown. Edward's 
claim to superiority was based on the fact already stated 
on a previous page, that William, a Scottish king in the 
time of Henry II., being taken in battle, was held in cap- 
tivity until he acknowledged the King of England as his 
feudal superior. Baliol received the kingdom at the hands 
of Edward, but soon rebelled against the humiliations im- 
posed upon him, and thence arose those fierce and 
bloody wars between the two countries, that continued 
through successive reigns to desolate the border lands of 
both. The earlier ballad and legend, wild and weird like 
the Scotch character itself, and the later tale and song 
with their warp of fact and woof of fiction, have involved 
the whole story of the struggle between England and 
Scotland in the fascinations of romance. 

Battle of Dunbar. — In the battle of Dunbar, in 1296, 
the Scots suffered a signal defeat. Edinburgh was besieged, 

as local magistrates, its business was somewhat limited, and the people in the rural 
districts were better accommodated. From the Court of Appeal sprang the Court 
of Chancery with the Chancellor at the head, a court governed by the principles 
of equity and not common law, and designed to have jurisdiction when the tech- 
nicalities of law and the inability of the other courts tp vary from fixed methods 
ot procedure prevented tne administration 01 exact justict. 



JO THE PLANTAGENETS 

Stirling was taken, and finally, at Montrose Abbey, Baliol 
surrendered into Edward's hands all right and title to the 
kingdom of Scotland. The Scottish kings were wont to 
be crowned at Scone, on a fragment of rock called the 
Stone of Destiny. There was a Scotch tradition that 
wherever that stone might be, there the Scots would reign. 
By Edward's order, it was taken to Westminster Abbey, 
then just completed, and placed beneath the coronation 
chair in which all the sovereigns of England are crowned. 

William Wallace. — But Scotland found a champion in 
the patriot William Wallace. Mustering an army of stal- 
wart peasants, he put to flight the English knights at 
Stirling. Castle after castle fell into his hands, until all 
Scotland was once more free from English rule. He 
pushed his victorious arms across the border and ravaged 
the north of England. The warlike Edward, who had 
been abroad while these events were occurring, now re- 
turned, and putting himself at the head of a large force, 
brought Wallace to bay at Falkirk, in 1298. The latter 
had been appointed Guardian of the Realm of Scotland, 
but proud Scottish lords, scorning to serve under one of 
humble birth, forsook, if they did not betray him, at 
Falkirk, and Wallace was utterly defeated. 

For seven years, outlawed, and with a price upon his 
head, hiding among his native mountains, he waged a 
pitiless war on the English, and was then basely betrayed 
by a Scotch noble. He was taken, in chains, to London, 
and there tried as a traitor, with a crown of oak leaves 
upon his head, to indicate that he was king of outlaws. 
Being condemned to death, he was tortured and executed 
in the most horrible manner. From lowland moor to 



EDWARD I 71 

highland glen, from peasant cot to lordly castle, sped the 
story of his cruel death. What Wallace living failed to do, 
Wallace dead achieved. Scotch jealousies died. The 
fierce resentment that united all hearts in a stern resolve 
to avenge his cruel death, united them in the nobler resolve 
to free their country from the hated English yoke. 

Robert Bruce. — In four months all the clans were in 
arms under their second champion, Robert Bruce. Ed- 
ward, bowed with years, but resolute still, once more took 
the field. But he sank under exertion and excitement, 
and died just as his army, at Burgh-on-Sands, came in 
sight of the blue hills of Scotland. In his dying moments 
he enjoined upon his son to prosecute the war with vigor, 
and even desired that his bones should be carried at the 
head of the army as it marched. 

Character of Edward I. — Edward I. was a wise legis- 
lator, a skillful soldier, and a gallant knight. Though a 
despot in disposition, and doggedly tenacious of the royal 
prerogative, he was just and even generous to law-abiding 
subjects. To others he was severe and even cruel. The 
Jews tampered with the coinage, and three hundred of the 
guilty died on the scaffold; and finally, in 1290, the whole 
Jewish people, numbering sixteen thousand souls, were 
banished from the realm. His natural sternness was 
tempered by gentleness and affection in his domestic rela- 
tions, but he would not shield from the consequences of 
crime even his own son, who once went to prison like 
a common felon. Under the pressure of want, Edward 
at one time levied money contrary to the Charter ; but, 
convinced of his error, he acknowledged it in tears, in the 
presence of his Parliament, and reformed. In this reign 



72 THE PLANTAGENETS 

Parliaments became more regular and met permanently 
at Westminster, but as yet the Commons had no voice in 
matters of legislation, simply voting money. 

EDWARD II., 1307 TO 1327 — 20 YEARS 

Character of Edward II. — Edward II. was weak, though 
childishly willful, and utterly destitute of the knightly 
qualities that shone so brightly in his father's character. 
He had neither vigor nor virtue enough to be just him- 
self, or to enforce justice among his people ; and much 
less did he rise even to a faint conception of the one grand 
purpose of his father's life, the extension of English do- 
minion over the whole island. He had but a single aim, 
indulgence in sensual pleasures. 

Piers Gaveston. — The first five years of Edward's reign 
were spent in contentions with his barons on account of 
one Piers Gaveston, a dissolute Gascon knight, to whose 
corrupting influence he had wholly surrendered himself. 
One of Edward the First's dying injunctions to his son 
was, never to recall the banished Gaveston. This injunc- 
tion was forgotten by the son, the moment the father was 
dead ; and the recalled favorite acquired, besides his old 
influence over Edward, entire control of the government. 
But it was Gaveston's insolent manners and his stinging 
witticisms on the barons, quite as much as his assumption 
of authority, that won for him their cordial hatred. Twice 
by force of arms they compelled him to leave the king- 
dom, and twice the infatuated king recalled him. He was 
seized by the barons on his reappearance in 1312, and 
thrown into Warwick Castle, whose lord he had nick- 






EDWARD II 73 

named the "Black Dog of the Wood." After a form of 
trial, he was taken to Blacklow Hill, a little rise of ground 
a short distance from the castle, near the river Avon, and 
there beheaded. 

The quarrel between the king and the barons over 
the worthless knight is important only as out of it came 
an advance in constitutional liberty. Parliament estab- 
lished the right to investigate the public expenditures and 
punish bad advisers of the king. 

Bannockburn, A.D. 1314. — While Edward and the 
barons were wasting their time in petty strife, the Scots 
under Bruce were gaining their independence. Linlith- 
gow, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and Perth successively fell 
into their hands. 1 

Stirling Castle was besieged, and its governor, under the 
pressure of want, agreed to surrender on a certain day, 
the Feast of St. John, if not relieved by the English. 
Edward, roused from his lethargy by the critical state of 
affairs at Stirling, hastily gathered an army of a hundred 
thousand men and pressed forward to its relief. 

He was met at Bannockburn by Bruce, at the head 
of thirty thousand Scots. In the battle that followed, the 
English suffered the most disastrous defeat, considering 
the disparity of the forces engaged, to be found in the 
history of English warfare. Edward's treasure and all 

1 The accounts of the sieges of castles held by English garrisons are full of 
romantic interest. Linlithgow was taken somewhat after the manner of ancient 
Troy. A Scotch peasant had been in the habit of supplying the garrison with 
forage. He came one day with a load of hay in which Scotch soldiers were 
concealed. Having crossed the drawbridge, he placed his load in such a position 
that the gates could not be shut. The concealed soldiers, suddenly appearing, 
held the gates until reinforcements lying in ambush came up, and the garrison was 
overpowered. 



74 THE PLANTAGENETS 

the vast material of his army fell into the hands of Bruce, 
while his panic-stricken soldiers were butchered without 
mercy. The Scots again ravaged the northern counties. 
Fresh armies were raised by the English, but little was 
accomplished. 

After the battle of Bannockburn, Edward fell under 
the influence of two new favorites, the Despensers, father 
and son. Their story is but the story of Gaveston re- 
peated : a brief use and abuse of power, a short but des- 
perate struggle with the enraged barons, and a violent 
death at their hands. 

Queen Isabella in France. — In 1325, the year before the 
fall of the Despensers, Queen Isabella had been sent by 
Edward to the court of her brother, Charles IV. of France, 
to arrange terms of peace between the two kings. She 
accomplished her mission in a manner more favorable to 
France than to England, but declined to return at Edward's 
earnest entreaty, pleading her fear of the Despensers. 
She had little love for her husband and had formed a 
violent attachment for Roger Mortimer, who had been 
condemned to the Tower on account of his enmity to the 
Despensers, but had escaped to France. He became the 
chief officer in Isabella's household. While abroad, the 
queen, who was accompanied by her son Edward, Prince 
of Wales, visited the court of William, Count of Hainault, 
and while there arranged a marriage contract between the 
prince and Philippa, daughter of the count. 

Deposition and Death of Edward. — In 1326, with a 
small force furnished by the count, Isabella returned to 
England, and at once raised the standard of revolt, ostensi- 
bly to overthrow the Despensers, but in fact to gain for 



EDWARD III 75 

herself and Mortimer the supreme power. She was 
hailed as a deliverer by all classes, and soon had an over- 
whelming force at her command. The king, deserted and 
helpless, embarked for the Isle of Lundy, off Bristol 
Channel, but was driven upon the Welsh coast and landed 
at Swansea. He soon surrendered himself to his enemies, 
and was hurried like a felon from place to place, and 
finally lodged in Berkeley Castle. 

Parliament, in 1327, declared the throne to be vacant; 
and thus was established the parliamentary right to de- 
pose the king. The young prince was crowned under the 
title of Edward III. To satisfy the feigned scruples of 
Isabella, Parliament extorted from the captive king a 
formal abdication of the throne. Edward II. never left 
Berkeley Castle. Its gloomy walls, one autumn night, 
rang with heartrending shrieks, and the next day the 
distorted features of the dead king told, only too plainly, 
the tale of his cruel death. A few years after this, Mor- 
timer, when about to expiate his crimes on the gallows, 
confessed that he sent two hired assassins to murder 
the hapless king. 

EDWARD III., 1327 TO 1377 — 50 YEARS 

The Regency. — Edward III. became a powerful mon- 
arch, and his reign was one of the longest and most bril- 
liant in the history of England. As he was crowned at the 
early age of fourteen, a Council of Regency, composed of 
twelve principal lords, was appointed to administer the 
government during the minority. But this council being 
controlled by Queen Isabella and Mortimer, the real power 
still remained in their hands. 



j6 THE PLANTAGENETS 

Treaty of Northampton. — Xhe Scots under James, Earl 
of Douglas, continued their ravages across the border, 
and the young king raised an army and marched against 
them. But the light-armed and well-mounted Scots, skill- 
fully avoiding battle and eluding pursuit, forced Edward 
to retire for want of supplies. Finally, in 1328, by the 
Treaty of Northampton, the independence of Scotland 
was acknowledged. 

Fall of Isabella and Mortimer. — Edward, now eighteen 
years of age, resolved to take the reins of government into 
his own hands. Isabella and Mortimer occupied a strong 
castle at Nottingham. Every night the keys of the castle 
gates were brought to the bedside of the suspicious queen, 
while guards were stationed at every avenue of approach. 
Under the guidance of the governor, a small but trusty 
band of Edward's friends entered the castle at night 
through a subterranean passage, and being joined by Ed- 
ward himself, took its garrison completely by surprise. 
Mortimer was seized and borne away, the queen piteously 
entreating her son to spare her "gentle Mortimer." From 
this moment Edward was king in fact as well as name. 
He summoned a Parliament, before whom Mortimer was 
brought, charged with various offenses, including the 
murder of Edward II. He was pronounced guilty and 
hanged on an elm at Tyburn in 1330, while Queen Isa- 
bella was consigned to lifelong imprisonment in Castle 
Risings. She lingered twenty-seven years in hopeless 
captivity, visited once a year by her son, the king. 

Halidon Hill. — Robert Bruce, the heroic old King of 
Scotland, died in 1329, and the crown descended to David 
his son, then but five years of age. History now repeat* 



edward in yy 

itself. Edward Baliol, son of John Baliol who figured in 
the reign of the first Edward, asserted his right to the 
sovereign power, as his father had done before him. 
Defeating the forces of Bruce, near Perth, he seized the 
power, while Bruce fled to France. To gain the support 
of Edward of England, this Baliol, too, agreed to reign 
as a vassal of the English crown. The indignant Scots 
sprang to arms and drove him from the kingdom. 

After a show of reluctance, on account of the treaty 
still in force between the two countries, Edward pro- 
nounced in favor of Baliol. Raising a large army, he 
marched into Scotland, and by one great battle at Hali- 
don Hill, in 1333, placed Baliol again upon the throne 
and compelled Bruce once more to take refuge in France. 
The very name of Baliol was hateful to the Scots, and 
upon the withdrawal of the English army, he was a second 
time driven from the kingdom. 

The " Hundred Years' War " with France. — The cause 
of Bruce had been warmly supported by the King of 
France, and Edward, convinced that English supremacy 
in Scotland could never be made secure so long as the 
ships and soldiers of France were at the call of the Scots, 
resolved to strike a decisive blow at France herself. Two 
convenient pretexts were at hand, the encroachments of 
the French on the English possessions on the continent, 
and the claim of Edward to the French throne itself. 1 

The war that now began between England and France 
is known as the " Hundred Years' War," because, with 
intervals of peace, it continued for a hundred years. 

1 The ground of Edward's claim will be seen in the following statement : 
King Philip IV., who was the father of King Charles IV., of France, left three sons 



y8 THE PLANTAGENETS 

Though English kings won a world-wide renown, and 
English soldiers covered themselves with glory during its 
progress, it ended in the loss to the English people of all 
their possessions in France except Calais. 

Crecy, A.D. 1346. — Philip, King of France, in 1340 
collected over four hundred ships of war in the harbor of 
Sluys, at the mouth of the Scheldt, where the first great 
naval battle of the war was fought. The English fleet, 
though inferior to the French in point of numbers, was 
better handled, and at the close of the fight more than 
half the French ships had been sunk or captured. A truce 
was made between the French and English kings which 
lasted till 1346, when Edward prepared to renew the con- 
test. Landing an arrny of thirty thousand men at Cape 
la Hogue, he took up his line of march along the coast 
for the walled town of Calais. Towns and castles were 
taken by assault, or passed by, as he advanced, and the 
fleet sailing along the coast was loaded with plunder and 
with captives for ransom. When Edward reached the 
town of Crecy (or Cressy), he found the whole French 
army of one hundred thousand men gathering to oppose 
him. The English line of battle was formed on a ridge of 

and a daughter, Isabella, who became the wife of Edward II. of England. The 
daughter was the youngest. The sons left only female issue, while the daughter left 
male issue, Edward III. of England. Edward was thus the nearest male heir. 
It was maintained by the French that Edward's claim was barred by the Salic law, 
a law that had long prevailed in France, forbidding female succession. Edward 
sought to evade the force of this law by asserting that, though a female could not 
inherit the power, she could transmit it to her male descendants. To this the 
French replied that a female could not transmit a right she did not herself possess. 
The French practice was in strict accordance with their theory, for on the death of 
Philip's sons, his heirs direct, being females or the issue of females, were passed 
over, and the crown was given, without opposition, to Philip of Valois, a nephew 
of Philip IV. 



Ur^as COIL-' 
A 




EDWARD III 79 

land gently sloping southeastward, on the crest of which 
stood a windmill, where Edward took his stand to watch 
the battle. The Prince of Wales and the Earl of North- 
ampton were posted at the front, on the right and left, 
with the men-at-arms and archers. At five o'clock in the 
afternoon of August 26, Philip sent a body of fifteen thou- 
sand Genoese crossbowmen to open the attack. Weary 
with the march, their bowstrings wet and limp from a 
passing shower, with the sun shining out full in their 
faces, they began the attack. The English archers 
received them with flights of arrows so thick that " it 
seemed as if it snowed," and they turned to fly, only to 
be cut down by Philip's men-at-arms. " Kill me these 
scoundrels," was Philip's command. Next came the 
French horse. Before the deadly showers of English 
arrows down went horse and man, blocking the way of 
those behind. Welshmen and Irishmen went boldly in 
among them with their knives. The men-at-arms stood 
like a wall in their path. The battle raged till nine 
o'clock, when the very chivalry of France, beaten, broken, 
fled away, and the whole army, seized with panic and in 
hopeless rout, went pouring back to Amiens, forty miles 
away, leaving thirty thousand dead, among them eleven 
great nobles and thirteen hundred knights. Once during 
the battle the Prince of Wales was so hard pressed that he 
sent to his father for help. " Let the boy win his spurs," 
was all the aid King Edward gave him. The battle over, 
the king sought out his gallant son by torchlight, embraced 
him, and bestowed upon him, in the presence of his fol- 
lowers, the much-prized guerdon of knighthood. And so 
this boy of sixteen years, ever after called the Black 



80 THE PLANTAGENETS 

Prince from the color of the armor he wore that day, 
began a career that, for brilliancy of achievement and the 
exhibition of shining knightly qualities, finds no equal in 
the annals of chivalry. 

Calais. — Five days after the battle of Cre^cy, Edward 
laid siege to Calais, a strongly fortified town on the sea- 
board, opposite the cliffs of Dover. French privateers 
had long made Calais their haunt while lying in wait for 
unguarded English traders. In twelve months it was 
starved into surrender, but the fortitude of its inhabitants, 
and the heroism of the immortal six who offered their 
lives as a ransom for the people, will challenge the admira- 
tion of all ages. Though Edward's army had been greatly 
wasted during the siege, and he had threatened to put the 
whole city to the sword, on account of its obstinate de- 
fense, he promised, at last, to spare the lives of its inhabit- 
ants if six principal citizens, bareheaded, barefooted, and 
with halters about their necks, would bring to him the 
keys of the town and castle, and deliver themselves up to 
his will. Six noble men offered themselves for the sacri- 
fice. They presented to Edward the keys and were 
ordered to instant death. But Edward's gentle queen, 
Philippa, falling on her knees before him, begged their 
lives, and they were spared. 

Neville's Cross. — The Scots, who were in alliance with 
France, taking advantage of Edward's absence, appeared 
in large force in the north of England, under the command 
of Bruce, their king. They were defeated by Philippa 
(who had not yet joined her husband in France) in the 
battle of Neville's Cross, Bruce himself being taken cap- 
tive. The exhaustion of an expensive foreign war and the 



EDWARD III 8 1 

ravages of a fearful plague called the Black Death forced 
Edward to make a temporary peace with France. 

Poitiers, A.D. 1356. — But war was renewed in 1355 by 
the Black Prince, who marched from his duchy of Aqui- 
taine with a small but well-appointed force and penetrated 
to the very heart of France. When about to return laden 
with spoils, he found himself opposed, a few miles from 
the city of Poitiers, by the French king at the head of an 
overwhelming army. By a wise choice of ground and a 
skillful disposition of his little force, he inflicted upon the 
French host a terrible defeat. Among the prisoners was 
John, the French king, who was brought by the gallant 
prince to London. Edward now held two captive kings. 
Bruce was released in 1357, after a period of eleven years, 
and by the peace of Bretigny in 1360 John was ransomed 
for three million gold crowns. Failing to raise the ran- 
som money, the chivalric king returned to a lifelong cap- 
tivity. By the same treaty, Edward relinquished his claim 
to the French crown, and held his French possessions no 
longer as a vassal, but as an independent sovereign. Up 
to this period his career had been one of brilliant success. 

Loss of French Possessions. — Pedro the Cruel, King of 
Castile, having been dethroned by his kinsman, Henry of 
Trastamare, aided by the French, fled to the court of the 
Black Prince at Bordeaux. The latter, prompted by a 
chivalric impulse as well as enmity to France, crossed the 
Pyrenees at the head of a large army, and, by a single 
battle at Navarrete, placed the fugitive king again on his 
throne. But the perfidious Pedro broke his promise to 
pay the expenses of the war, and left his destitute and 
suffering allies to their fate. Weakened by hunger and 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 6 



82 THE PLANT AGENETS 

hardship, they fell easy victims to a deadly fever that 
swept through their camp. The Black Prince, utterly 
broken in health and burdened with debt, recrossed the 
Pyrenees with only a miserable remnant of the splendid 
army with which he began the campaign. King John died 
soon after returning to captivity, and his son, Charles the 
Wise, finding the time favorable, renewed the war with 
the English. In a last effort to save the French prov- 
inces, the Black Prince only sullied his knightly honor by 
a wanton massacre of the inhabitants of Limoges, and 
John of Gaunt marched from Calais to Bordeaux only to 
see his magnificent army waste away amid the snows of 
Auvergne, or fall a prey to the sleepless French who hung 
closely about its line of march. One by one the English 
possessions were wrested away, until, in 1374, nothing 
remained of their once splendid empire in France but 
Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne. 

The Good Parliament. — At home were misrule and dis- 
content. Queen Philippa having died, the enfeebled old 
king fell under the baneful influence of one Alice Perrers, 
who not only ruled the royal court but sat beside the 
judges and directed the administration of justice. Through 
her influence, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, became 
almost supreme in the government, appointing its princi- 
pal officers and seeking to pave his way to the throne. 
The Good Parliament, summoned in 1376, bravely under- 
took to reform the abuses of the state. It was nobly 
supported by the Black Prince, who had returned to Eng- 
land and was now devoting his last energies to the work 
of reform. By petitions, which were then the basis of 
legislation, corrupt officials were removed and punished, 



EDWARD III 83 

even John of Gaunt, the author of many of the prevalent 
abuses, being compelled to retire ; Alice Perrers was for- 
bidden, under pain of banishment, to interfere with the 
courts ; and no less than twelve petitions were directed 
against the various claims of the Pope and the drain of 
English money to Rome. But the work of reform was 
brought to a sudden close by the death of the Black 
Prince and the return of John of Gaunt to power. In one 
thing the latter had been in harmony with the Good 
Parliament : in resisting the demands of the Pope. He had 
a powerful ally in John Wickliffe, who, beginning with a 
denunciation of the various orders of friars, ended in a 
bold attack on the doctrines of the church. Thus began 
the First Reformation. 

The English Language. — The Anglo-Saxon or English 
had long been the language of the peasantry, Latin the 
language of business and the graver literature, and French 
the language of society and the lighter literature. During 
this reign a marked change took place. The Anglo-Saxon, 
with an admixture of both Latin and French, was slowly 
becoming the national tongue. The writings of Wickliffe, 
sent broadcast over the land, gave both shape and impetus 
to the movement. Wickliffe may be called the morning 
star of English prose, as Chaucer has been called the 
morning star of English poetry. Toward the close of 
Edward's reign, the English language was taught in the 
schools instead of French, and a statute passed in 1357 
required its use in the courts of justice. Even French 
romances began to be translated into English. 

The English People. — There had always existed feel- 
ings of hatred and jealousy among the people of the dif- 



84 THE PLANTAGENETS 

ferent races. The native Briton could never forgive his 
Saxon conqueror, and both alike detested the proud and 
domineering Norman. The reign of Edward witnessed 
the blending of these discordant races into one harmonious 
people. They fought side by side at Crecy and Poitiers, 
and their animosities melted away amidst rejoicings of 
victory. From that time they looked back with a common 
pride to a glorious past, and forward with a common hope 
to a more glorious future. 

Change in the Methods of Warfare. — A change was 
gradually taking place in the methods of warfare. Hith- 
erto mail-clad knights had been the main reliance in battle, 
but Edward, following the example of William Wallace 
at Falkirk, had won his most brilliant campaigns with 
English archers. At Crecy and Poitiers the knights of 
France were first thrown into confusion by clouds of 
arrows sped with unerring aim by English bowmen. It 
is said that cannon were first used on the battlefield at 
Crecy ; but heavy cannon, throwing stones, were used be- 
fore for siege purposes. 

The Two Houses of Parliament. — Edward had increased 
the number of towns allowed to send representatives to 
Parliament, making the latter so large that it was found 
necessary to divide it into two distinct bodies, the one com- 
posed of lords and bishops, called the House of Lords, and 
the other, of representatives of towns and counties, called 
the House of Commons. And thus was perfected the 
legislative branch of the government. The Witenagemot 
of the Saxons had developed into the Great Council of 
the Normans, and that, first into the single Parliament of 
Earl Simon, and now into its perfected form of two inde- 



RICHARD II 85 

pendent Houses. From this moment the Commons, who 
had been overawed in the presence of lords and bishops, 
assumed a more independent character. It is a significant 
fact that Edward, forced by his necessities during the 
French wars, confirmed the Great Charter thirteen times. 
Death of Edward. — Enfeebled by age, and overwhelmed 
by the disasters that had befallen him, Edward survived 
the Black Prince but a year, dying in 1377. His last years 
were gloomy, and his death peculiarly sad, — a striking 
commentary on the vanity of human glory. As the end 
drew near he was utterly forsaken. Even Alice Perrers 
snatched a ring from his unresisting finger, and fled. At 
the last moment a compassionate priest entered the silent 
chamber and held a crucifix before the fast-glazing eyes 
of the dying king. It is difficult to realize that this is the 
Edward who was the very prince of that proud race, the 
Plantagenets, the hero of the French wars, and the pride 
of England. Chivalry was then at its zenith, and Ed- 
ward's court had been chivalry's capital. Hither gallant 
knights had been wont to gather from all parts of Europe 
to mingle in the scenes of feudal splendor that constantly 
dazzled the eyes of the wondering people. And, whether 
in the friendly lists of the tournament or the deadly shock 
of battle, Edward's plume had always been preeminent. 

RICHARD II., 1377 TO 1399 — 22 YEARS 

The Regency. — No king ever came to the English 
throne more heartily welcomed, or left it less regretted, 
than Richard II. The fact that he was the son of the 
Black Prince, that mirror of chivalry and idol of the peo- 



86 THE PLAXTAGENETS 

pie, opened all hearts to him. He was handsome but 
effeminate, a mere lover of pleasure and royal display. 
His retinue numbered ten thousand persons, and its pas- 
sage through the country was dreaded little less than 
that of an invading army. As he was but eleven years of 
age when he inherited the crown, a regency was appointed. 

Causes of Wat Tyler's Rebellion. — Four years after his 
accession, the Peasants' Revolt, or Wat Tyler's Rebellion, 
broke out. This revolt is worthy of very brief mention, 
considered alone in the incidents attending it. It had 
none of the "pomp and circumstance of war," and was 
little better than tumultuous gatherings of ill-organized 
mobs, whose subsidence was as sudden as their uprising. 
But the social and political questions involved lift it into 
a plane of grave importance. It was a revolt founded 
on social distinctions, the beginning of an irrepressible 
conflict between the poor and humble oppressed and the 
rich and noble oppressor ; of an antagonism between labor 
and capital, that, in one form or another, has continued 
unabated to this day. 

During the preceding reigns, the serfs had, in various 
ways, gradually risen to the condition of freemen. The 
work of emancipation had been hastened by the neces- 
sities of the lords themselves, who, to maintain the pomp 
and splendor of chivalry, expensive even in time of peace 
but doubly so in time of war, resorted to every artifice 
to raise money. It was a ready and productive way, to 
commute the services of the serfs for their estimated value 
in money. Edward himself, to raise funds for the French 
wars, sent agents to all the royal estates to sell to the serfs* 
their freedom. So that by the middle of the fourteenth 



RICHARD II 87 

century, free labor had, to a considerable extent, taken the 
place of slave labor and was then abundant and cheap. 

In 1348, in the reign of Edward III., a terrible plague, 
called the Black Death, originating in Asia and travers- 
ing the continent of Europe, swept England as with 
the besom of destruction. One half its inhabitants were 
carried off, but it was especially malignant among the 
lower classes. At its close, labor was scarce and high, 
and as it naturally sought the best market, in some sec- 
tions harvests could not be gathered for want of help. 

The landowners appealing to Parliament for relief, an 
Act, called the "Statute of Laborers," was passed, rees- 
tablishing the old low price of labor, and compelling the 
laboring classes to seek employment within the limits of 
their own parishes. This virtually restored the old and 
odious system of serfdom, creating the most intense dis- 
content among the peasantry. They gathered in large num- 
bers to listen to the harangues of their leaders, depicting, 
in bitter language, the wretched condition of the poor and 
the luxurious estate of the rich. By the close of Edward's 
reign the oppressed peasantry were ripe for revolt. 

The Breaking out of the Rebellion. — In the fourth year 
of Richard's reign, a tax of one shilling was imposed on 
every person in the kingdom above fifteen years of age. 
It was not the amount of the tax, but the fact that the 
poor were taxed as heavily as the rich, that kindled the 
smoldering spark into a flame of rebellion. The most 
formidable rising took place in Kent, where a hundred 
thousand peasants gathered under Wat Tyler, and, taking 
up their line of march for London, poured into the city 
in a vast disorderly mass. Many excesses were com- 



88 THE PLANTAGENETS 

mitted, but the fury of the multitude was chiefly directed 
against those concerned in the odious tax and previous 
oppressive legislation. The king, who at first had taken 
refuge in the Tower, met them by appointment at Mile- 
end, just out of London. During the conference, Tyler 
placed his hand on the dagger at his side and was in- 
stantly stricken down by one of the king's attendants. 
The lives of the royal party were in imminent peril, for the 
bows of the enraged insurgents were already bent, when 
the king, riding hastily forward, exclaimed, " Tyler was 
a traitor; I will be your leader." They quickly gathered 
about their new and youthful leader, praying for liberty 
for themselves and their children. This achievement of 
Richard's seems almost heroic, and is all the more con- 
spicuous from the long and ignoble career that followed 
it. Richard professed to yield to their prayers, and thirty 
clerks were set to work preparing and distributing free 
papers. The pacified insurgents began to break up and 
return home. In the meantime the nobles were assem- 
bling their forces and hastening to the support of the 
king. The latter, false to his word, quickly canceled all 
the free papers he had issued and caused the leading 
rebels in all the towns to be tried and punished. 

Though the revolts were suppressed and the peasants 
nominally returned to a state of serfdom, the newly awak- 
ened desire for personal liberty could not be extinguished, 
and the work of emancipation went slowly but surely for- 
ward, until, in a century and a half, serfdom may be said 
to have disappeared from England. 

Wickliffe and the First Reformation. — The Peasants' 
Revolt, charged, as it was, by Catholics to the seditious 



RICHARD II 89 

teachings of Wickliffe and his followers, was a serious blow 
to the reformation. 1 Wickliffe was forsaken by his most 
powerful friends, including the Duke of Lancaster himself. 
But there was another reason for this defection, — Wick- 
liffe's extreme views in regard to some of the tenets of the 
church. So long as he merely exposed the corruptions of 
the clergy, he was applauded by all classes, but when he 
assailed the cardinal doctrines of the church, he lost the 
sympathy of all good Catholics. Wickliffe now displayed 
the real greatness of his mind and the versatility of his 
genius. Instead of the scholarly arguments in Latin 
that he had hitherto addressed to the great and learned, 
he now directed his appeals in plain Anglo-Saxon to the 
masses of the English people. Pamphlet after pamphlet 
against both the doctrines and the practice of the church 
issued from his prolific pen and was sent broadcast over 

1 The teachings of some of the leaders, and so the tendency of the times, are 
clearly indicated in the following sentiments, attributed to John Ball, the " mad 
priest of Kent": "Good people, things will never go well in England so long as 
goods be not in common, and so long as there be villains [simply vassals] and 
gentlemen. By what right are they, whom we call lords, greater folk than we? 
On what grounds have they deserved it ? Why do they hold us in serfage ? If we 
all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or 
prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by 
our toil what they spend in their pride ? They are clothed in their velvet and warm 
in their furs and their ermines, while we are covered with rags. They have wine 
and spices and fair bread, and we eat oat cake and straw and water to drink. They 
have leisure and fine houses. We have pain and labor, the rain and the wind in 
the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state." The 
following couplet is also attributed to Ball : — 

" When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Who was then the gentleman ? " 

It is hardly to be wondered at that multitudes of ignorant men, bitterly conscious 
of their own wretchedness and the sumptuous estate of their masters, both equally 
undeserved, in their minds, should enlist in an enterprise that promised to make 
them all more nearly equal. 



90 THE PLANTAGENETS 

the land. An order of preachers, called the Simple 
Priests, was instituted to disseminate his doctrines. Such 
progress was made that " every other man you met was a 
Lollard," 1 to use the bitter language of a careful observer 
of the times. The crown at last came to the aid of the 
church ; Wickliffe was banished from Oxford, and his 
writings were condemned as heretical and ordered to be 
burned. Retiring to Lutterworth, he devoted his ener- 
gies to the last and grandest work of his life, the trans- 
lation of the Bible into English. December 30, 1384, he 
had a stroke of paralysis while attending mass in the 
parish church, and passed peacefully away the next day. 

Otterburn and Chevy Chase. — There is little of interest 
in the foreign relations of this reign. The border lands of 
both England and Scotland were wasted by hostile incur- 
sions. In 1388 occurred the battle of Otterburn, a mere 
border fight between two hostile noblemen, Percy and 
Douglas, with their retainers, but made forever memorable 
by that celebrated ballad, " Chevy Chase." 

Chaucer. — In the reigns of Edward III. and Richard 
II. lived Chaucer, the " Morning Star of English poetry," 
•whose "Canterbury Tales," the most famous of his works, 
is still read with delight. Thirty pilgrims from all classes 
in society are represented as traveling together from Lon- 
don to Canterbury to visit the shrine of St. Thomas, and 
whiling away the tedium of the journey by telling stories, 
which furnish the most accurate picture of the manners 
and customs of the times that has come down to us. 



1 The name Lollard, derived from the old German lollen or lullen, to sing, was 
first applied to the reformers as an epithet of derision, from their practice of 
singing hymns in their meetings. 



RICHARD II 91 

Tyranny of Richard. — Richard was in a constant quarrel 
with his uncles and guardians. When twenty-two years of 
age he assumed entire control of the government. After 
reigning a few years with moderation and justice he became 
more despotic than any of his predecessors. By a cun- 
ningly devised statute, granting him a life income and 
placing the legislative power in the hands of a select 
number of lords and burgesses, Parliament was virtually 
abolished. Though the king now seemed secure in the 
possession of power, his downfall was near at hand. 

Deposition of Richard. — A personal quarrel having 
arisen between two young noblemen, an appeal was 
made to "wager of battle." On the day appointed for 
the contest, and in the presence of the multitude gathered 
to witness it, Richard banished both from the kingdom 
and soon after seized the estates to which one of them, 
Henry Bolingbroke, his own cousin, had fallen heir. Tak- 
ing advantage of the absence of the king in Ireland, Henry 
landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire and raised the standard 
of revolt. His twenty followers increased to sixty thou- 
sand fighting men by the time he reached London. 

Richard hastened back to England, only to fall into 
Henry's hands, suffer dethronement by Act of Parliament, 
and disappear within the walls of the Tower. With 
Richard ends the direct line of Plantagenet kings, on 
the whole an able though a tyrannical race. But the 
worst of these kings were the best for England in the 
end, for with intolerable tyranny came rebellion and ulti- 
mate relief. Rebellion founded in a just cause does not 
often end in mere bloodshed and anarchy, but in a per- 
manent advance in justice, liberty, and law. 



CHAPTER VI 
House of Lancaster, 1399 TO l 4& 1 — 62 Years 

HENRY IV., Bolingbroke HENRY VI., of Windsor 

HENRY V., of Monmouth 

HENRY IV., 1399 TO 1413 — 14 YEARS 

Henry's Title. — Henry IV. gained the crown by his 
prowess. Conscious that his title 2 was defective and his 
possession of power precarious, he sought to win to 
his support those most powerful elements in the state, 
the nobility and the church. To the nobility, flushed with 
pride at the memories of Crecy and Poitiers but burning 
with shame at the loss of Aquitaine, he held out the gains 
and the glory of another French campaign. Incessant 
domestic troubles prevented the renewal of the war with 
France, but, hoping to gain the favor of the church con- 

1 To explain: The four oldest sons of Edward III. who left children were 
Edward, the Black Prince; Lionel, Duke of Clarence; John of Gaunt, Duke of 
Lancaster ; and Edmund, Duke of York. Edmund, Earl of March, was descended 
from Lionel, the second, and Henry IV., from John of Gaunt, the third of these sons 
of Edward III., so that when the eldest branch of the royal family became extinct, 
as it did at the death of Richard II., son of the Black Prince, the crown belonged 
of right to the Earl of March, the representative of the second branch. This usurpa- 
tion of Henry IV. was all the more glaring, since it really occurred before the death 
of Richard II., and it led, some sixty years later, in the reign of Henry VI., to a 
series of wars called the " Wars of the Roses." One other fact ought to be men- 
tioned in this connection. Shortly after this usurpation, the second and fourth 
branches of the royal family were united by the marriage of their two surviving rep- 
resentatives, Anne and Richard of Cambridge. Richard, Duke of York, the issue 
of this marriage, was the one, in the reign of Henry VI., to press the claims of his 
house to the throne. 

92 



HENRY IV 93 

scious of the steady growth of reform ideas, he began a 
most bitter persecution of the reformers. 

The First Martyr at the Stake. — By an Act of Parlia- 
ment, called the " Statute of Heretics," the bishops were 
empowered to imprison all writers, teachers, and preachers 
of heresy, and, on their refusal to abjure, to surrender 
them to the civil power for punishment. William Salter, 
a London preacher, was the first martyr at the stake. 
Being condemned by the bishops, he was handed over to 
the civil authorities and burned, in accordance with the 
statute, in 1401. 

Henry IV. has the unenviable distinction of being the 
first King of England to impose on his subjects, by statute, 
the penalty of death, and that the awful death by fire, 
on account of fidelity to religious belief. And thus was 
inaugurated the system of horrible intolerance that blackens, 
for so long a period, the page of English history, an in- 
tolerance of which Catholics and Protestants were alike 
guilty, and whose only palliation is the spirit of the age. 
To the prayer of the House of Commons, that the cruel 
statute might be repealed or mitigated, Henry replied that 
he wished one more severe had been passed, and gave a 
terrible proof of his sincerity by immediately signing the 
death warrant of another reformer. 

Revolt in Behalf of Richard II. — Henry's reign wit- 
nessed a constant succession of revolts. Three of these 
will be noticed. The first was in behalf of King Richard, 
who was rumored to have escaped from confinement and 
to be still living in concealment in Scotland. This was 
quickly suppressed, and in less than a month a report 
was current that Richard had died at Castle Pontefract 



94 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

His body was even brought to London and exposed to 
the public gaze, that all might see that he was really dead. 
Strange and conflicting stories were told of the manner 
of his death, but nothing is positively known. He is 
supposed to have been consigned by Parliament to an 
unknown dungeon and to have died a violent death at 
the instigation of Henry himself. 

Revolt of the Welsh. — Another revolt broke out in 
Wales, under Owen Glendower, who claimed descent from 
the royal line of Llewellyn and the ancient Britons. As 
in the times of Edward I., patriot bards, journeying from 
place to place with song and story of the early heroes of 
Welsh history, fired the Welsh heart anew with its old love 
of liberty. Glendower, being defeated in the open field, 
retired to the fastnesses of Snowdon, and throughout 
Henry's reign defied the whole power of England. What 
became of him was never known. He lived for some 
time after Henry V. came to the throne, a wanderer and 
an outlaw, refusing all overtures of peace, and making 
his home in hidden caves among his native hills. A cave 
still called " Owen's Cave " is to be seen on the coast of 
Merioneth. 

Revolt of the Percies. — But the insurrection most dan- 
gerous to Henry's throne suddenly broke out under the 
Percies, who had hitherto been its most powerful sup- 
porters. The cause of their defection is not clear. It 
may have been Henry's inability to pay the expenses of 
their previous campaigns in his behalf, or his unwilling- 
ness to ransom the elder Mortimer, Hotspur's brother-in- 
law, who was a prisoner to Glendower ; but its declared 
object was to place upon the throne the Earl of March, 



HENRY IV 95 

whom Henry held as a state prisoner at Windsor. They 
were assisted by Glendower and Douglas, each at the 
head of a band of his countrymen. Henry gained a com- 
plete victory over all these foes at Shrewsbury, in 1403, 
Hotspur, the younger Percy, being killed on the field of 
battle. The elder Percy perished in a subsequent revolt. 

The Poet-King of Scotland. — Prince James, a youth of 
twelve and heir to the Scottish throne, had embarked for 
France, to escape the perils that menaced the royal family 
of Scotland. His ship was taken by an English cruiser, 
and the young prince remained a state prisoner in Eng- 
land for nearly nineteen years, two of which were spent in 
the Tower, and sixteen in the keep of Windsor Castle. 
He was provided with good instructors and became the 
famous "Poet-king of Scotland." When released, he 
assumed the crown to which he had fallen heir, and made 
one of the noblest of Scottish kings. He married Lady 
Joanna Beaufort, an English princess, to whom he had 
become attached while in prison. 

Henry's Troubles. — Henry lived in constant dread of 
the Lollards, who were known to be active in fomenting 
insurrections. He was conscience-smitten, too, it is said, 
at the part he had taken in their persecution, as well as at 
the means he had used to attain to power. Forced to be 
ever on the alert against the friends of the dead Richard 
on the one hand, and those of the living Mortimer on the 
other ; morbidly jealous of the growing popularity of the 
Prince of Wales, and in constant fear lest the latter 
should snatch the crown from his head ; distressed at 
the prince's wild and reckless conduct ; and shattered in 
mind and body by epileptic fits to which he was subject, 



96 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

he grew morose and unpopular toward the end of his 
reign and was hurried prematurely to his grave. He died 
in a fit, while praying before the shrine of St. Edward's 
at Westminster. " Uneasy lies the head that wears a 
crown," was Shakespeare's sage reflection on the stormy 
years of Henry's reign. 

HENRY V., 1413 TO 1422 — 9 YEARS 

The Wise Beginning of Henry's Reign. — The reign of 
Henry V. was short but brilliant, happily disappointing 
those who feared that the reckless prince would make a 
reckless king. Calling together his old companions in 
folly, he told them of his purpose to change his life, and 
forbade them to enter his presence until they should fol- 
low his example and reform. In proof of his sincerity as 
well as wisdom, he selected as his principal advisers in the 
government men of known integrity of character. Among 
them was Gascoigne, who, as Chief Justice, once sent 
Prince Henry himself to prison for interfering with the 
course of justice. Several just and noble acts, at the very 
outset of his career, did much to disarm the enemies of his 
house. He pacified the York family by setting free the 
long-imprisoned Earl of March, and by giving to the 
bones of Richard II. a truly royal burial among the kings 
of England at Westminster. He gained the support of 
the powerful family of the Percies by restoring to them 
their forfeited estates. 

Suppression of the First Reformation. — Henry's atten- 
tion was early called to the Lollards. Their doctrines had 
been gradually spreading, during the preceding reign, not 



HENRY V 97 

only in England, but on the continent. John Huss, rector 
of the University of Prague, had become, through the 
influence of Wickliffe's writings, a convert to Lollardism, 
which he openly preached until silenced at the stake. 

The Catholic clergy, early in this reign, saw the neces- 
sity of acting with more vigor against the " new heresy," 
and marked as their first victim Sir John Oldcastle, who 
was the leader of the Lollards in England, and whose 
castle the Lollards made a place of refuge. 

The king, inspired by. an old friendship, sought to save 
him from death ; but Oldcastle, refusing to recant, was 
cast into the Tower, and, after trial and condemnation by 
the prelates, was turned over to the civil authorities to be 
burned. The king again interposed, granting a respite 
of fifty days, during which Oldcastle made his escape 
and planned, so it was said, and so the king believed, an 
immediate rising of the Lollards. Henry at once took 
decided ground against the Reformation, and the most 
violent persecution followed. The severest statutes were 
enacted, commanding the arrest of all persons suspected of 
heresy, and entailing forfeiture of estate and blood on all 
convicted. Oldcastle and many others perished, and the 
first Reformation, in all that was outward and visible, was 
soon at an end. Elsewhere allusion has been made to the 
decline of the Reformation among the influential classes, 
on account of its connection with the "Peasants' Revolt." 
A word more seems proper before leaving the subject. 
Some of the leaders of the Reformation, lacking the sin- 
gleness of purpose that inspired its founder, Wickliffe, 
sought, as we have seen, to bring within its sweep the 
removal of social distinctions and the equalization of prop- 
LAN. ENG. HIST. — 7 



98 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

erty, — our modern communism. At the time of its sup- 
pression, it also rested under the odium of conspiring to 
subvert the government. The Reformation, branded on 
the one hand as communistic, and so, dangerous to society ; 
on the other as revolutionary, and so, destructive to public 
order, gradually arrayed against itself not only the rich 
and powerful, but also the more thoughtful and conserva- 
tive. Outwardly the Reformation ceased to exist, but, to 
use the expressive words of Lingard, a spirit of inquiry 
had been generated, and the seeds were sown of that reli- 
gious revolution which, in a little more than a century, 
astonished and convulsed the nations of Europe ; or, to 
use the poetic language of Knight, "Out of Wickliffe's 
rectory, at Lutterworth, seeds were to be borne upon the 
wind which would abide in the earth till they sprang up 
into the stately growth of other centuries." * 

Renewal of the "Hundred Years' War." — During the 
reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV., there had been an 
intermission in the "Hundred Years' War" with France. 
It was renewed by Henry V., a year after he became king, 
by a revival of the old claim to the French throne. The 

i Thirty years after Wickliffe's death, and in the early part of Henry's reign, the 
Council of Constance, the same that condemned John Huss, issued a decree that 
Wickliffe's remains should be disinterred and burned. This was done, and his 
ashes were cast into a little brook that runs past Lutterworth, into the Avon. The 
Avon leads into the Severn, and the Severn into Bristol Channel. In the following 
beautiful lines the poetic fancy of Wordsworth makes the scattering of Wickliffe's 
ashes an emblem of the spreading of his doctrine: — 

" As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear 
Into the Avon — Avon to the tide 
Of Severn — Severn to the narrow seas — 
Into main ocean they — this deed accurst, 
An emblem yields to friends and enemies, 
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified 
By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed." 



HENRY V 99 

time was favorable. The French king, Charles VI., was 
insane, and his son, the Dauphin, was too young to rule ; 
while the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans had involved 
the nation in a bloody war to decide which should be re- 
gent during the Dauphin's minority. Henry crossed the 
channel and captured Harfleur, near the mouth of the 
Seine, but with a loss, by sickness and death, of two thirds 
of his army. Against the advice of his nobles, he formed 
the daring purpose of marching through the country to 
Calais, following the old route of Edward III. He had 
about ten thousand men. The French factions, startled 
at the new danger, ceased their fratricidal strife and pre- 
pared to meet the common foe. 

Agincourt, A.D. 1415. — The French army, estimated at 
one hundred thousand men, planted itself directly across 
Henry's path, near the village of Agincourt. The hostile 
armies joined battle about noon, October 25. In three 
hours, the battle won added new glory to English arms 
and fresh laurels to her kings. Considering all the cir- 
cumstances of the day, it was the most brilliant victory 
English soldiers ever gained over those of France. 

Agincourt at once took its place in history by the side 
of Crecy and Poitiers, but outshone them both ; Crecy 
in the fearful odds against which the English contended, 
and in the brilliant personal achievements of England's 
king ; Poitiers, in the amazing fortitude with which that 
little band of sick and starving men encountered the flower 
of the chivalry of France. Seven princes of the blood, 
above a hundred noblemen, and eight thousand knights, 
fell on the side of France that day. 

Henry then made his way unopposed to Calais and soon 
Lttf c. 



IOO HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

after crossed the channel to England. What a joyful wel- 
come the English people gave their warrior-king when he 
returned from his brilliant campaign ! They rushed into 
the water, as he neared the land, and bore him on their 
shoulders to the shore. Throngs of delighted people went 
out to meet him from all the towns, strewing flowers in his 
path. His entrance into London finds no parallel except 
in the magnificent triumphs the people of ancient Rome 
were wont to give their returning victors. 

Siege of Rouen. — All attempts at a permanent peace 
were futile, and, in 141 7, Henry again entered France, with 
a well-appointed force of forty thousand men. Towns and 
castles surrendered at his summons or fell before his as- 
saults. The siege of Rouen lasted six months. Its inhab- 
itants, variously estimated at from one hundred and fifty to 
two hundred thousand, refusing to open their gates, were 
at last reduced to the most dreadful extremities. " War," 
said Henry, " has three handmaidens, Fire, Blood, and 
Famine, and I have chosen the meekest maid of the 
three." And while the merciless king was slowly drawing 
his lines closer around the devoted city, this meek but piti- 
less handmaiden, Famine, was executing her horrible com- 
mission within its walls. One half its inhabitants had 
perished, and the survivors, in despair, had resolved to 
burn the city and die in battle before its walls, when 
Henry, fearful that Fire and Blood would, at the lastj 
snatch from his hands the coveted prize, offered them 
terms of capitulation. 

Conquest of France and Treaty of Troyes. — An event 
soon happened that hastened and completed the conquest 
of France. The Duke of Burgundy was assassinated in 



HENRY V IOI 

the very presence of the Dauphin himself, and probably 
with his connivance. The duke's son Philip, in revenge, 
allied himself with Henry, and the whole Burgundian party 
threw itself into the scale against the Dauphin. A treaty 
was made at Troyes, in the presence of the King and Queen 
of France, in 1420, bestowing on Henry the hand of Prin- 
cess Catherine, and securing to him the regency of France 
during the life of its maniac king, and its sovereignty at 
his death. The States-General solemnly ratified the treaty. 
While engaged in bringing the kingdom to order, in the 
very prime of life and the height of his power and glory, 
Henry was attacked by an incurable disease and died, 
August 31, 1422. He left at Paris an infant son, now 
King of England and France. 

Henry's widow, Catherine, afterward married Owen 
Tudor, a Welsh chieftain, one of her attendants, and from 
them sprang the Tudor sovereigns. 

Beginning of the Navy. — The first ship of war ever 
owned by the English government was built in Henry's 
reign. Before this period, the maritime towns had fur- 
nished all the ships needed for war or for other national 
purposes. 1 

The House of Commons took but a single step in ad- 
vance during Henry's reign. It settled the principle that 
no law should be valid without the assent of the House 
of Commons. 

1 The dependence of the government on maritime towns, for ships of war, con- 
tinued for a long time, even after it began to have vessels of its own ; for the growth 
of the English Navy was very slow. The fleet with which Elizabeth, many years 
later, destroyed the Invincible Armada, was mainly contributed, all manned and 
equipped, by maritime towns and wealthy individuals. 



102 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

HENRY VI., 1422 TO 1461 — 39 YEARS 

The Dauphin of France assumes the Crown. — Henry 

VI. was crowned King of England and France at the age 
of nine months, his uncles, the Dukes of Gloucester and 
Bedford, being appointed, in accordance with the wish of 
his father, the one Protector of the Realm of England, and 
the other Regent of France. The Dauphin of France had 
never consented to the " Treaty of Troyes," setting aside 
his claims to the throne, and, at the death of his maniac 
father, shortly after that of Henry V., assumed the title of 
Charles VII. The town of Orleans, lying on the north 
side of the Loire, and the country south of the Loire, were 
loyal to Charles, never having come under the sway of 
England. Bedford, who as a soldier was little inferior to 
Henry V. himself, laid siege to Orleans, with the design 
of extending the English dominion. The French were in 
consternation ; for with the fall of Orleans the country 
south of the Loire would be open to invasion. 

Joan of Arc. — The amazing success of the campaigns 
of Edward III. and Henry V. had given the French an 
exalted idea of English valor and a great distrust of their 
own. There is no other explanation of the ease with which 
a mere handful of English soldiers could repeatedly over- 
run the most populous districts of France. It was at this 
moment, when French despondency was deepest, that help 
appeared from a most unexpected quarter. A simple 
peasant girl of Domremy, on the eastern confines of 
France, believing that she was destined by Heaven to free 
her country from foreign rule, presented herself at the 
court of Charles. She told the story of the angel visions 






HENRY VI I03 

she had seen, and the voices she had heard, commanding 
her to go to the succor of her king. The French people 
had unlimited faith in Joan's divine commission, and 
Charles himself, believing, or professing to believe, her 
story, paid her the greatest honor. The belief in sorcery 
and witchcraft was all but universal in that age. To allay 
the alarm of their superstitious soldiers, the English com- 
manders assured them that Joan was not a messenger x)i 
Heaven, but this only forced them to the belief that she 
was sent by the Evil One and was a witch, and their dis- 
may was complete. 

Joan, clad in white armor and mounted on a snow-white 
horse, with a great white banner borne before her, on 
which were embroidered the lilies of France, directed 
her march toward Orleans. Crowds of excited sol- 
diers joined the strange procession that passed unopposed 
through the lines of the awe-stricken English and entered 
Orleans. Under her lead, the French soldiers, restored 
to confidence in themselves, soon drove the besieging 
army from its intrenchments, and Orleans was saved. 

Joan, called from this time the " Maid of Orleans," then 
commenced her triumphant march on Rheims, where, 
according to the prophetic "voices," the king was to 
receive his crown. Town after town was taken on the 
way, sometimes without a blow, the English soldiers flying 
in dismay as the dread banner came in sight. At Rheims, 
the garrison was driven out by the inhabitants, and the 
gates opened wide to receive the advancing host. In the 
old cathedral that had witnessed the coronation of many 
of his ancestors, Charles was formally crowned King of 
France in 1429. 



104 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

Joan, with tears of joy, declared that her work was done, 
her mission ended, and desired to return at once to the care 
of her father's flocks. There were other cities to be con- 
quered, and the king detained her ; but her enthusiasm 
was gone, her counsels became timid and vacillating, and 
the spell of her power over the soldiery was soon broken. 
Captured in the defense of Compiegne, she was sold to 
the English by Burgundy, and, after a year's captivity at 
Rouen, basely handed over to the church courts for trial. 
Being condemned as a witch and a heretic, she was burned 
to death in the ancient market place at Rouen, in 1431. 
Whatever credit we may give to the " visions " and 
"voices" Joan professed to have seen and heard, we 
cannot doubt her heartfelt sorrow for her crownless king 
and fallen country, her sincere faith in her mission, or her 
devotion in fulfilling it, her purity, her piety, and her 
martyr's death. Though her ungrateful king made no 
effort to rescue or ransom her and took no interest in her 
fate, her name is held in grateful remembrance among 
her countrymen, and excites a tender respect wherever her 
strange, sad story is told. This remembrance and respect 
will form a monument more enduring than that erected 
to her memory on the spot where she died. 

Loss of France, except Calais. — English rule in France 
was hastening to its close. The Dukes of Burgundy and 
Orleans had been reconciled, and their united forces were 
hurled against the English. Fighting bravely, but defeated 
on every side, the English retired to Normandy in the hope 
that that province, at least, might be saved. There was 
a truce and then a treaty, but both were powerless to stop 
the war. Normandy rose in rebellion in the north, and 



HENRY VI I05 

Guienne in the south. Though the English fought with 
desperate valor, they were steadily driven toward the sea- 
board, and finally within the walls of Calais, and the 
" Hundred Years' War," that long, fitful dream of an 
English empire in France, was over. Such an empire was 
impossible. 

The campaigns of Edward III. and Henry V. were 
brilliant but unsubstantial, feeding the national pride but 
exhausting the national resources. As soon as those great 
captains retired from the scenes of their conquests, those 
conquests melted away like mist before the morning sun. 
The French crown was but a bright and tempting " Will- 
o'-the-wisp," luring on ambitious kings, but ever eluding 
their grasp. 

English Discontent. — The loss of France caused intense 
disappointment in England, and as the vengeance of the 
people could not be visited on the royal person, it fell 
on the heads of his advisers. The Duke of Suffolk had 
brought about the marriage of Henry with Margaret of 
Anjou, consenting, in the contract, to the cession of 
Maine and Anjou to Margaret's father. To satisfy popu- 
lar clamor, Suffolk was impeached by Parliament, and 
hurried by the king into exile, to save him from a worse 
fate at home. But Suffolk's enemies were not to be 
cheated out of their prey. He was pursued and over- 
taken on the high seas by a large ship, called the 
" Nicholas of the Tower." Being ordered on board the 
Nicholas, he was greeted, as he reached its deck, with 
the salutation, "Welcome, traitor." Two days afterward, 
he was let down into a small boat and beheaded with a 
rusty sword, on a block of wood. The Duke of Somerset 



106 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

was held responsible for the more recent losses in France ; 
but, being a relative of the king and a favorite of the 
queen, he continued for a while to defy all his enemies. 

Jack Cade's Rebellion. — Shortly after the death of 
Suffolk, a revolt broke out under one Jack Cade, an old 
soldier in the French wars. It grew out of the general 
discontent at the mismanagement of the government at 
home and abroad. Cade's grievances were embodied in 
a "Complaint," sent to the Royal Council, of which bad 
counselors to the king, interference of the nobles in the 
elections, extortion of the royal officers, and the Statute 
of Laborers, formed the chief burden. It is interesting 
to note that this revolt was chiefly located in Kent, Wat 
Tyler's old home, and among the very classes implicated 
in Tyler's old rebellion. 1 Cade, advancing toward London 
with a motley crowd of twenty thousand men, met and 
scattered the royal forces at Sevenoaks. The king fled 
to Kenilworth, and Cade entered London. Three days he 
held the city, putting to death obnoxious persons, and, at 
the last, plundering private property. When he had re- 
tired at night to Southwark, the citizens held London 
Bridge and prevented his return. On a promise of par- 
don and redress of grievances, the pacified insurgents 

1 Tyler's chief grievance was serfage, and his chief demand was freedom. The 
fact that neither serfage nor freedom was mentioned in Cade's Complaint is strong 
incidental proof that slavery, though still on the statute book, had virtually died 
out, especially in its more odious features. The sumptuary laws of this period also 
show the improved condition of the lower classes, and the gradual passing away of 
social distinctions. Although the Statute of Laborers was still unrepealed, it had 
ceased to be executed, the labor question being left, for the most part, to the natu- 
ral laws that govern it, the laws of supply and demand. To compare the two 
revolts, Tyler s was an outburst of despair on the part of men whose wrongs had 
become unendurable ; Cade's a mere political outbreak, inaugurated by men dis- 
satisfied with the management of public affairs. 



HENRY VI 



IO7 



began to return to their homes, while Cade himself, with 
a price on his head, and almost without a follower, was 
pursued into the country and put to death. 

Wars of the Roses. — Cade's rebellion is supposed by 
some to have been incited by Richard, Duke of York, 
who returned from his government in Ireland, in a short 
time, only to increase still more the general confusion. 
He demanded the dismission of the Duke of Somerset 
from office. The violent quarrel that now began between 
the ambitious dukes soon ripened into open war. Henry, 
although a man in years, was but a child in intellect. The 
real government lay in the hands of the queen, the friend 
of Somerset. At this juncture Henry sank into utter 
imbecility, and Parliament appointed York protector. 
Somerset went into the Tower. The king recovered, and 
York retired to his estate, while Somerset returned to 
power. The most powerful noble in England was the 
Earl of Warwick, who took the side of York. In the 
spring of 1455, York and Warwick marched toward Lon- 
don, with professions of loyalty to the king, but with a per- 
emptory demand for the surrender of Somerset. The battle 
of St. Albans, in 1455, left Somerset dead on the field ; that 
of Northampton, in 1460, witnessed the complete over- 
throw of the royal forces and the capture of the king himself. 

Hitherto, the Duke of York had professed loyalty to 
the king and enmity only to his bad advisers, but he now 
revealed the hidden purpose that had inspired all his 
movements from the beginning. Boldly entering the 
House of Lords, he pronounced Henry VI. a usurper, and 
claimed the crown as his own by right of inheritance. 1 

1 See note on page 92. 



108 HOUSE OF LANCASTER 

The Lords, compelled to act, acknowledged the justice of 
his claim, but decided that, since the House of Lancaster 
had held the scepter for sixty years and the nation had 
sworn fealty to its present king, with him the scepter 
should remain while he lived, and then descend to the 
House of York. 

Henry's spirited queen, indignant at an arrangement 
that disinherited her son, summoned all the friends of the 
House of Lancaster to the field. The conflicting claims 
of the two houses had been discussed at every hearth- 
stone and camp fire in England, and the sympathies of 
civilians as well as soldiers were warmly enlisted on the one 
side or the other. The adherents of the House of Lan- 
caster wore as a badge the red rose, and those of the 
House of York, a white rose ; hence the name " Wars of 
the Roses." Though there was actual warfare less than 
two years, these wars covered a period of thirty, sacri- 
ficing nearly all the members of both royal families, and 
more than half the ancient nobility of England. In the 
first conflict, at Wakefield, in 1460, the Red Rose tri- 
umphed over the White, the Duke of York being captured 
and brought to the block, on the field of battle. His head 
was placed on the walls of York, adorned, in mockery, with 
a paper crown. In the second, at Mortimer's Cross, the 
White triumphed over the Red, Edward, the young Duke 
of York, being in command. In the third, at St. Albans, 
the Red was again victorious, and King Henry, who had 
been brought, a prisoner, upon the field by Warwick, 
being left behind in the rush of retreat, was restored to 
liberty. 

The true qualities of most minds are best seen in 



HENRY VI IO9 

emergencies. Some men are never so little to be feared 
as when victorious ; others never so dangerous as after a 
defeat. While the Lancastrian generals, instead of fol- 
lowing up their advantage at St. Albans, allowed their 
men to scatter over the country to pillage, Edward, 
spurred to promptitude and boldness by failure, pushed 
straight on to London. As the young and handsome 
prince rode through the streets of the capital, he was 
greeted by the people with shouts of " Long live King 
Edward." A council of peers, prelates, and citizens was 
hastily convened, before whom Edward boldly demanded 
the crown. The council declared that Henry had forfeited 
his life lease by taking sides with the queen, and that 
Edward was the rightful king. The formal coronation 
took place at Westminster, June 29, 1461. 



CHAPTER VII 

House of York, 1461 to 1485 — 24 Years 

EDWARD IV. I RICHARD III. 

EDWARD V. 

EDWARD IV., 1461 TO 1485 — 24 YEARS 

Towton, A.D. 1461. — Edward put himself at the head of 
all the forces he could muster, and set out in pursuit of 
the Lancastrians now hurrying northward. He overtook 
them at Towton, about eight miles from York. Each 
army numbered sixty thousand men. It was in the midst of 
a snowstorm, about four o'clock in the afternoon of Palm 
Sunday, that the struggle began. All night long and part 
of the following day the dreadful battle raged, and when 
the Lancastrian army, panic-struck, fled from the field, 
thirty-three thousand men lay dead in the snow. It had 
been the practice, from the very beginning of the war, for 
either party, when victorious, to execute the nobles of the 
other and confiscate their estates. After Towton there was 
a sweeping confiscation of Lancastrian estates, many of 
which went to reward the Earl of Warwick, the main pillar 
of the House of York. So rich and powerful did this noble- 
man become, it is said he could muster an army of men 
from the vassals on his own estates, and he has come 
down to us in history as the King-maker, from his ability, 
as we shall presently see, to make and unmake kings. 



EDWARD IV III 

Two attempts made by the Lancastrians at Hedgeley 
Moor and Hexham, in 1464, to retrieve their fallen for- 
tunes, were unfortunate. Henry, after hiding in Lan- 
cashire for more than a year, was betrayed to his enemies 
and thrown into the Tower. Queen Margaret, friendless 
and destitute, fled with her little son, Prince Edward, to 
the court of her father. 

Barnet. — The friendship between Edward and War- 
wick soon gave place to secret enmity, and that to open 
warfare. Edward was jealous of the overshadowing power 
of Warwick, and Warwick was offended at Edward's secret 
marriage with Elizabeth Grey, widow of a Lancastrian 
knight, and the elevation of the queen's family, the 
Woodvilles, to rank and power. 

Fortune was fickle. In the spring of 1470 Warwick 
became an exile in France, where he made an alliance with 
Queen Margaret, engaging to aid her in restoring the 
House of Lancaster to power. This alliance was cemented 
by the marriage of Margaret's son to Warwick's daughter. 
In the fall of the same year, Edward, in turn, became a 
fugitive in Holland, and Henry exchanged a dungeon for 
the throne. In the spring of 147 1 Edward, having re- 
ceived aid from his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, 
landed at Ravenspur and prepared, once more, to meet his 
powerful foe. On the field of Barnet, on Easter Day, in 
the mist and darkness, was fought the last battle between 
the king and the king-maker. The latter, betrayed by 
his ally, the Duke of Clarence, King Edward's brother, 
was slain, and his army was cut to pieces. Edward re- 
ascended the throne, and Henry reentered the Tower, 
where he died soon after by the hand of violence. 



112 HOUSE OF YORK 

Tewkesbury. — The very day the battle of Barnet was 
fought, Margaret landed with a force at Weymouth. Un- 
dismayed by the disastrous tidings that soon reached her, 
the spirited queen pushed northward and made a final stand 
at Tewkesbury. There, on the 4th of May, she saw her 
last army annihilated, her only son, for whom alone she 
had really fought, cruelly slain while crying for mercy, 
and the last hope of the House of Lancaster swept away. 
Ransomed after five years of captivity by the King of 
France, she returned to her native Anjou and died broken- 
hearted over the disasters that had befallen her family. 

Character and Government of Edward. — Edward had a 
superior mind and was a good soldier. So long as his 
crown was in jeopardy, he continued vigilant and active ; 
but when the last enemies of his house had been silenced, 
in the dungeon, in exile, or in death, he gave himself 
unreservedly to the gayeties and excesses of his court. 
Handsome and affable, he made himself a favorite in 
society ; but sagacious and unscrupulous in matters of 
state, he became a tyrant and established a despotism. 

He attempted to revive the old threadbare claim to 
sovereignty in France. Parliament voted large sums for a 
French war and raised and transported to French soil an 
immense army. But negotiations were soon opened with 
King Louis, resulting in a treaty in which Edward yielded 
his claims for an annual pension. 

The odious spy system was a device of Edward's, and 
was made so thorough that the lightest court gossip as 
well as the gravest state intrigue found its way to the 
king's ear. Another invention of Edward's was called a 
"benevolence." This was a gift of money which he would 



EDWARD IV 113 

invite his rich subjects to make him, and which they dared 
not refuse, — an ingenious way of keeping the letter, but 
violating the spirit, of the law against arbitrary taxation. 

Results of the Wars of the Roses. — We are now at the 
close of Edward's reign, and although the last battle 
of the Wars of the Roses has not yet been fought, the 
main part of the struggle is over, and it seems proper 
here to allude briefly to its general results. These may 
be summed up as follows : 1st. The destruction of the 
ancient nobility of England and the fall of the feudal 
system. 2nd. The loss of constitutional liberty. 3rd. The 
decline of civilization. 

The Destruction of the Ancient Nobility. — The Wars of 
the Roses were peculiarly the wars of the nobles. All the 
great feudal houses, gathered around the rival standards 
of York and Lancaster, were hurled against each other, in 
battle after battle, with frightful loss. Confiscations, exe- 
cutions, and exile still further diminished their numbers 
and power, until, at the close of the contest, the ancient 
baronage of England was left a hopeless wreck. It is 
said that at one time and another, during these wars, the 
crown held one fifth of all the real estate in England as 
its share of the spoils. It is true, both lands and titles 
remained, some of them to return to their former owners 
or their kindred, but more went to enrich and ennoble 
the favorites of the king. 

The nobility, thus recreated by royal clemency and 
royal bounty, was shorn of its traditional power and in- 
dependence. It bore little resemblance to the grand 
feudal race that, coming down from the Conqueror, was as 
old as the throne and as proud ; to the lordly race that, 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 8 



114 HOUSE OF YORK 

for centuries, had stood so firmly between the throne and 
the people, the support of the one against faction, and the 
defense of the other against tyranny. 

We cannot help feeling admiration for the old-time 
baron of England, whether we recall him in time of peace, 
in the old ancestral castle, extending a rude but hearty 
hospitality, or in time of war, closing his gates and bidding 
defiance to all his foes. He feasted or he fought with 
equal relish, and was no respecter of persons, buckling on 
his armor as readily for a tilt with the forces of the king 
as with those of his quarrelsome neighbor. Said Earl 
Warrenne, as he flung his sword on the table before the 
commissioners of Edward I., sent to examine his title deed, 
"That, sirs, is my title deed." When Earl Bigod refused 
the demand of Henry III. for aid, said the latter, "I will 
send reapers and reap your fields for you." "And I will 
send you back the heads of your reapers," replied the 
fearless earl. 

We cannot but honor the patriotism of the barons, as 
well as admire their fearlessness. Time and again did 
they come to the front in periods of national peril. They 
wrung from the tyrant John the great charter of freedom. 
Who that has read the story of Magna Charta has not 
longed to know which of the immortal twenty-four con- 
ceived and framed that wonderful instrument ? But history 
is not silent as to the name of Simon de Montfort, the 
leader of that other immortal twenty-four that reared the 
House of Commons in the very face of the throne. 

With the ancient baronage fell the feudal system. Feu- 
dalism, as a power in England, expired, as it were, in a 
bright but lurid flame, when the House of Warwick, after 



EDWARD IV 115 

towering for a brief period high above the throne itself, 
suddenly went down on the field of Barnet. The regret of 
the reader will be but natural that Warwick, who has been 
fitly called the " Last of the Barons," could not have been 
the best as well as the last of his race. 

The Loss of Constitutional Liberty. — From Magna 
Charta to the Wars of the Roses there was a slow but 
real progress in constitutional liberty, almost every reign 
bringing either a limitation of the royal prerogative or an 
enlargement of popular rights. 

At the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, there had 
been established, so far as the intelligence of the people 
and the arbitrary dispositions of kings allowed, the fol- 
lowing principles : The king had lost the right to levy 
taxes, make or change the laws, and imprison or punish 
subjects arbitrarily. Parliament had gained, besides the 
control of laws and taxes, the right to impeach and remove 
the ministers of the crown, direct and investigate expendi- 
tures, depose the king, and settle questions of peace and 
war. During the Wars of the Roses, all these great prin- 
ciples and guarantees, won through centuries of toil and 
suffering, were rudely swept away, and it was a century 
more before the nation had sufficiently recovered itself to 
reassert and reestablish them. England may be said to 
have passed from an absolute to a limited monarchy, when, 
in the reign of Edward I., the king lost the right to levy 
taxes without the consent of Parliament. Edward IV. 
reduced England again to an absolute monarchy, that con- 
tinued to grow more and more absolute, until, in the reign 
of Henry VIII., it became a despotism practically as un- 
mitigated as that of the Czar. 



Il6 HOUSE OF YORK 

Nor is this strange. The nobility, shattered and de- 
pendent, had neither power nor prestige, and could no 
longer, if it would, stand between the people and oppres- 
sion ; the church that had so often stood side by side with 
the nobility in the contest with tyranny, was stricken with 
heresy, and paralyzed through fear of another reforma- 
tion ; the people were not yet sufficiently enlightened to 
understand or maintain their own rights ; and so the 
crown was left with little or no restraint, and the descent 
toward absolutism was easy and rapid. Charters, statutes, 
and human rights were trodden under foot with perfect 
impunity. To use the language of Green, " The crown 
which only fifty years before had been the sport of every 
faction, towered into solitary greatness." 

Though constitutional liberty seemed, after the Wars of 
the Roses, to have departed from England, none of the 
great statutes advancing the cause of human rights were 
ever abrogated. 

Magna Charta was recognized as the supreme law of the 
land by kings and ministers, even while they trampled its 
provisions under their feet. The Monarchy and the House 
of Lords were once abolished (1649), but the House of 
Commons never. Though hated by tyrants, and so pro- 
rogued, dissolved, overawed, and ignored, it never for a 
moment ceased to exist in the English constitution. 

The Decline of Civilization. — The barbarous manner in 
which these wars were conducted was most debasing, not 
only to the soldiers who were actors, but also to the peo- 
ple who were spectators in the horrible drama. " No 
quarter" was the savage order in many a battle. But 
more demoralizing than this were the cold-blooded execu- 



EDWARD V 117 

tions that followed almost every victory. And most bru- 
talizing of all was the hideous and sickening spectacle 
of ghastly heads and limbs of human bodies, impaled on 
stakes and walls in public places, and constantly staring 
the people in the face. What a school for the young were 
the Wars of the Roses ! The nobler qualities of individual 
character were consumed in the fierceness of the hate 
which these wars engendered. There is hardly a chival- 
rous deed to be found in the whole gloomy record. War 
is not necessarily demoralizing to either individual or 
national character. When waged in the cause of truth 
and justice, it may be ennobling to both. A Washington 
or Hampden may achieve true greatness in the midst of 
conflict and carnage. But in the Wars of the Roses there 
was no principle at stake. The welfare of a nation was 
sacrificed to the interests of a house ; the patriot was sunk 
in the partisan ; the baser passions ruled ; and civilization 
declined. 

EDWARD V., APRIL 9 TO JUNE 26, 1483 

Usurpation of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. — The peo- 
ple of England had settled down tolerably contented under 
Edward IV., in spite of the tyrannical character of his 
government. In fact, they were willing to accept almost 
any rule that could save them from the horrors of civil 
war, and give some promise of stability. At Edward's 
death there was a general disposition to receive kindly his 
son Edward as his successor. But there was one man in 
England who did not share this feeling : Richard, Duke of 
Gloucester, uncle to the young prince. With the subtle 
craft of which he was master, Richard concealed his ambi- 



Il8 HOUSE OF YORK 

tion under a mask of loyalty, but at once put into opera- 
tion a scheme of usurpation, that, for boldness of design 
and skill in execution, has few equals. 

He first arrested, on a trivial charge, Lords .Grey and 
Rivers, relatives of Prince Edward on his mother's side, 
and threw them into Castle Pontefract. He then pos- 
sessed himself of the person of Edward, and afterward 
of Edward's younger brother Richard, and lodged them 
for safe keeping, as he said, in the Tower. He next se- 
cure^ from Parliament his own appointment as Protector 
of England, and at the same time, with other peers, took 
the oath of fealty to Edward. 

A few days after this, on the 13th of June, occurred 
a scene in the Tower, where the royal council was in 
session, marked in itself, but made forever classic by the 
genius of Shakespeare. Richard suddenly presented him- 
self before this council, at the head of a file of soldiers, 
and charged its president, Lord Hastings, with sorcery 
and designs upon his life. " I will not dine," said he, at 
length, "till they have brought me your head." Hastings 
was quickly hurried into the courtyard by the waiting 
soldiers and beheaded on a chance block of wood. The 
other members of the council were cast into prison. 
Having thus put out of the way all the immediate friends 
of the young princes, Richard found his elevation to the 
throne easy. He surrounded himself with soldiers, and 
was attended in public by a formidable array of prelates 
and nobles, many of whom were won to his side by the 
honors and offices he heaped upon them. The Thames is 
said to have been covered with the barges of his servants, 
while in London organized gatherings of the rabble were 



RICHARD III 119 

taught to shout " Long live King Richard." A shame- 
less friar, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, pronounced the 
princes illegitimate, and declared the Duke of Gloucester 
to be the true heir to the kingdom. Finally, a deputation 
headed by the Duke of Buckingham, Richard's pliant 
minion from the beginning, invited him to take the crown, 
which, with a show of reluctance, he consented to do. 

The next day, at an informal meeting of members of 
Parliament, the declarations of the friar received a shame- 
less indorsement, and Richard, the following day, the 26th 
of June, occupied the royal seat at Westminster Hall as 
Richard III. The same day Grey and Rivers were be- 
headed without a show of trial. The formal coronation 
took place on the 6th of July, and the well-planned tragedy 
of which Gloucester and Buckingham were the authors 
and chief actors, the whole kingdom of England a stage, 
and all its people silent but interested spectators, was over. 

RICHARD III., 1483 TO 1485 — 2 YEARS 

The Elements of Opposition to Richard. — Although no 
open resistance was made to the usurpation of Richard, he 
had numerous enemies, including nearly all the adherents 
of the House of Lancaster and those of the House of York 
who were at heart loyal to the rightful king, Edward V. 
There was, too, a general feeling of indignation at the 
harsh treatment of the young princes ; for at the accession 
of Richard they had been removed from the palace of 
the Tower to its prison. There were whispers of a gather- 
ing storm. The Duke of Buckingham, now estranged 
from his old master, was getting ready for a rising « to 



120 HOUSE OF YORK 

liberate the princes and restore Edward to his rights. 
Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the last surviving Lan- 
castrian in the direct line of inheritance, who had been 
saved at the fall of the Lancastrian cause by flight to the 
continent, was busy enlisting English exiles and fugitives 
to return and assist in the rising. 

The Smothered Princes. — Richard had gone to the north 
on a "royal progress," and was at Warwick when vague 
rumors of Richmond's plans first reached his ears. A 
messenger of Richard's rode swiftly back to London on a 
secret mission and soon it was noised abroad that the 
young princes were no more. How or when they had 
died, no one knew ; but that a foul murder had been com- 
mitted and that Richard was its instigator, all believed. 
The very mystery in which the fate of the princes was 
shrouded, as impenetrable as the gloomy walls that were 
its silent witnesses, served but to deepen the public horror 
of the crime and the public abhorrence of the criminal. 
After Richard's death the hired assassins told how they 
smothered the little princes, sweetly sleeping in each 
other's arms, and buried them at the foot of the staircase 
that led to their apartment in the White Tower. In con- 
firmation of this story it is said that some workmen sent 
by Charles II. in 1674 to make repairs, found the bones 
of two youths buried in the ground at the foot of an old 
staircase. 

Bosworth Field. — The rising that took place was unfor- 
tunate. Richmond, who had arrived with a fleet to aid the 
movement, was driven off the coast by a storm and com- 
pelled to return to France. Buckingham, unable to cross 
the high waters of the Severn to join the confederates, 



RICHARD III 121 

was taken *and executed. Richard now summoned his 
first and only Parliament, and attempted by wise legisla- 
tion 1 to turn the current of public opinion setting so 
strongly against him. It was too late. The death of the 
princes defeated the plans of the conspirators, but a new 
scheme was made to elevate Richmond himself to the 
throne and to bring about his marriage with Elizabeth, 
eldest daughter of Edward IV., thus uniting the rival 
houses and rallying to the support of Richmond the 
adherents of both. Richard tried to forestall a scheme 
so dangerous to his power by an attempt to marry 
Elizabeth to his own son, but the latter suddenly died. 
Richard then proposed to espouse her himself, but was 
deterred by the force of public opinion. 

In the meantime Richmond was busy reorganizing his 
expedition, and word soon came that he had sailed from 
the mouth of the Seine. Richard took his stand at Not- 
tingham, a central point, and with horsemen on all the 
roads awaited the beacon lights on the distant hilltops 
that were to signalize the time and place of Richmond's 
landing. August 7, 1485, the expedition entered Milford 
Haven and a landing was effected. On the 22d the oppos- 
ing armies met on the field of Bosworth. In the midst 
of the conflict Lord Stanley went over to Richmond with 
all his forces. Earl Percy refused to fight, and Richard, 

1 Among others there were statutes making unlawful the exaction of " benevo- 
lences,"— establishing a protective tariff, but allowing the free importation of 
books, — forbidding the seizure of the goods of persons suspected of crime before 
conviction, and allowing such persons to be liberated on bail, — giving freedom to 
all the serfs still left on the royal estates, — legalizing the sale of estates regardless 
of the entail, a statute which encouraged the breaking up of large estates and the 
wider distribution of landed property among the middle and lower classes, and 
which is usually accredited to the reign of Henry VII. 



122 HOUSE OF YORK 

with a cry of " treason, treason ! " rushed into the thickest 
of the fight with the desperate resolve to conquer or to die. 
Attempting to strike down his rival, Richmond, into whose 
very presence he had cut his way, he was surrounded and 
slain. His golden crown, which had rolled under a haw- 
thorn bush when he fell, was found and placed upon the 
head of Richmond on the battlefield and in the presence 
of the whole army. There was great rejoicing throughout 
England when it was known that the hated king had 
paid with his life the penalty of his crimes. The Wars of 
the Roses and the reign of the House of York ended to- 
gether on Bosworth Field. 

Character of Richard. — It is difficult to make a just 
estimate of the character of Richard III., good authorities 
differ so widely in their views of him. Until recently he 
has been regarded as a monster of wickedness and without 
a redeeming quality. But his apologists affirm that the 
historians and dramatists from whom we have derived our 
impressions, living in the Tudor period and devoted to the 
interests of the Tudor sovereigns, painted Richard's 
character in colors altogether too dark. There is no 
doubt that mere suspicions 1 of crime on the part of 
Richard have grown into a positive belief in his guilt, that 
his bad qualities and wicked deeds have been paraded in 

i The belief that Richard murdered Henry VI. with his own hand, and drowned 
the Duke of Clarence, his older brother, in a butt of Malmsey wine, seemed to rest 
on the fact that he was known to be in the Tower when they were reported to have 
died ; and the belief that he was the one who stabbed the son of Henry VI. after 
the battle of Tewkesbury, rested on the fact that he was known to be present, but 
Hastings and Clarence were also present. The belief that he put out of the 
way Anne, his wife, to make room for Elizabeth, rested on the fact that she died 
very conveniently for his plans, although rather suspicious remarks are accredited 
to Elizabeth, in substance that the better part of February had passed and she 
feared the queen would never die. The queen died about the middle of March. 



RICHARD III 123 

all their deformity, and his good qualities and worthy 
deeds passed lightly over. He showered benefits on those 
who served him, and performed many acts of kindness and 
justice. He restored to the family of Hastings the for- 
feited estates, secured her jointure to the widow of Rivers, 
and provided for Edward IV.'s widow and daughters, who 
had taken sanctuary at Westminster when Edward V. was 
sent to the Tower. He inspired more wise legislation in 
the single session of his Parliament than can be found 
in the records of any previous reign since Edward I. — 
legislation that had the ring of liberty in it. As a ruler 
merely, he compares favorably with the kings of that 
period. But as to his character as a man, it seems diffi- 
cult to reverse the verdict of history. The historians of 
the Tudor period, though partial, recorded and reflected 
the opinions of Richard's own contemporaries, the public 
sentiment of Richard's own times ; and public sentiment, 
though not infallible, is, in the long run, a truthful mirror 
of the characters of men. 

Richard began his public career about the year 147 1, 
and continued for fourteen, years to be actively engaged 
in public affairs, twelve in the service of his brother, Ed- 
ward IV., and two as an actual sovereign. Almost his 
first recorded public act was one of heartless cruelty. A 
young man of less than twenty years, he was one of 
two judges that condemned to death many Lancastrian 
nobles after the battle of Tewkesbury, when they had 
been induced to leave the sanctuary to which they had 
fled, by a promise of pardon. 

With the death of the princes the feeling against Rich- 
ard became intense and universal. It was evident that 



124 HOUSE OF YORK 

personal ambition was his sole inspiring motive. Splendid 
talents and the most untiring energy were remorselessly 
devoted to one fixed purpose, to become King of England. 
As best suited his policy, he could assume the most daring 
effrontery and boldly strike down those who stood in his 
way ; or, resorting to the arts of dissimulation, remove 
them by the hand of the secret assassin. Henry VIII. 
destroyed a hundred lives to Richard's one ; but he did 
not inspire half the terror, for Henry's judicial murders 
were perpetrated under the color of law and in the light 
of day. Simply to secure his throne, Henry VII. put out 
of the way, with a form of trial, an unoffending royal 
prince, without exciting universal abhorrence. 

There is nothing from which human nature so instinc- 
tively shrinks as a deed of darkness, no being it so abhors 
as an assassin or his employer ; and it was the settled 
belief in Richard's almost Satanic capacity for deeds of 
darkness, that inspired all England with such a dread 
of him, and that has given to his character on the page 
of history a color of such unexampled blackness. 






CHAPTER VIII 

Tudor Family, 1485 to 1603 — 118 Years 



henry VII. 

HENRY VIII. 
EDWARD VI. 



MARY 
ELIZABETH 



HENRY VII., 1485 TO 1509 — 24 YEARS 

Union of York and Lancaster. — That Henry was a de- 
scendant of John of Gaunt, 1 and an acknowledged usurper, 
would, under ordinary circumstances, have endangered his 
throne ; but his opportune marriage with Elizabeth, a York 
princess, entirely appeased the jealousy of the House of 
York, while the satisfaction of the people at the overthrow 
of Richard fully reconciled them to the usurpation. This 
union of the Roses was a source of great strength, not 
only to Henry but to all the Tudor sovereigns. 

Lambert Simnel. — The only attempts worthy of note to 
disturb the new house were made by two impostors : Lam- 
bert Simnel, son of a joiner of Oxford, and Perkin War- 
beck, son of a merchant of Tournay. Simnel claimed to 
be Edward, Earl of Warwick, the nearest male heir of the 
House of York, although the real Warwick then lay in a 

1 It will be remembered that by the Treaty of Troyes Henry V. received in 
marriage the hand of Catherine, daughter of Charles VI., the crazy King of 
France, and that after Henry's death his widow married Owen Tudor, a Welsh 
chieftain, by whom she had a son. This son married a descendant of John of 
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The issue of this marriage was Henry Tudor, Earl 
of Richmond, now Henry VII. Hence the name Tudor. 

125 



126 THB.TUDORS 

dungeon in the Tower, to which he had been transferred 
by Henry. Landing in England with a force chiefly of 
Irish, he was beaten and taken captive in the battle of 
Stoke. As an expression of the king's contempt for the 
imposition he had practiced, Simnel was made a scullion 
in the royal kitchen, but was afterward promoted to the 
office of falconer to the king. 

Perkin Warbeck. — Warbeck, a more dangerous im- 
postor than was Simnel, personated Richard, the younger of 
the smothered princes, claiming that he had escaped from 
the Tower, and had now come forward to assert his rights. 
He visited a number of foreign courts, and had a variety 
of interesting adventures, being crowned as a real prince 
at Dublin, furnished with a royal bodyguard at Paris, 
patronized as the "True White Rose" by the Duchess 
of Burgundy, and supplied with men and money, and 
wedded to a royal wife, 1 by James of Scotland. After 
two fruitless invasions, the one from Scotland under the 
lead of the Scottish king, and the other from the west, 
supported by the Cornishmen, Warbeck was deserted by 
all his followers and traced to the sanctuary 2 of Beaulieu, 

1 This was Lady Catherine Gordon, a member of the royal house of Stuart. 
She was famed for personal beauty and amiable traits of character. When War- 
beck entered upon his dangerous career, he placed his wife for safe-keeping in the 
Castle of St. Michael's Mount. After his defeat, a body of horsemen surrounded 
the castle, and compelled its surrender. Even the cold practical king was touched 
by Catherine's devotion to her husband, and gave her an honorable place near the 
person of the queen. The name, White Rose, by which she came to be known, 
though suggested by the false claims of her husband, was given as a tribute to 
her beauty. 

2 Sanctuaries were consecrated places where criminals could, for a limited time, 
find shelter when pursued. They were analogous to the temples of refuge among the 
ancient Greeks and the cities of refuge among the Jews. In England, as early as the 
seventh century, churches, and in some cases their grounds, were set apart for 
sanctuary purposes. Sometimes a stone seat was placed beside the altar, where the 



HENRY VII 127 

in the New Forest. Induced to surrender, he was thrown 
into the Tower and afterward hanged at Tyburn, on the 
charge of planning an insurrection with the young Earl of 
Warwick, his fellow-prisoner. Warwick was also executed, 
not because he was guilty of any offense worthy of death, 
but because he was the last male Plantagenet, and a source 
of possible danger to the throne of Henry. 

The Statute of Allegiance. — The attempts made on the 
throne, though not very grave, led Parliament to define 
by statute the allegiance of the subject. It was enacted 
that no one should be punished for allegiance to the reign- 
ing king, whether he be king " de jure" (by right), or 
king " de facto " (in fact). This was designed to guard 
against such wholesale executions, in case of a change in 
the dynasty, as followed the fluctuations of the Roses, when 
men were adjudged traitors one day for adhering to York, 
and beheaded the next for following Lancaster. 

The Discovery of America. — The reign of Henry VII. 
marks the era of discovery. When Columbus returned to 
Spain, under whose auspices he had sailed in 1492, and 
the startling news flew from port to port that the Indies 
had been reached by sailing to the westward, it was like a 
bugle blast in the midst of a slumbering army. The mari- 
time nations of Europe awoke to a spirit of enterprise and 

person of the fugitive was as sacred as the altar itself. Though the sanctuary might be 
surrounded, and the criminal forced by hunger to surrender himself, he had the right 
of" abjuration of the realm " ; that is, he could go before the proper authority anytime 
within forty days, confess his crime, and make oath to quit the realm and not return 
without the consent of the king. In that case he was protected until he could embark 
for some foreign country. Traitors were deprived of the right of sanctuary in 1534, 
criminals in the reign of Elizabeth, and insolvent debtors in 1607. But in Scotland, 
the Palace and Abbey of Holyrood still remain a sanctuary for poor debtors. Per- 
sons not criminals, whose lives were in danger, often took shelter in the sanctuaries. 



128 THE TUDORS 

inquiry they had never known before. National pride and 
jealousy, and individual love of glory and adventure, sent 
expedition after expedition out into the broad and hitherto 
dreaded Atlantic, on its wonder-seeking mission. The 
printing press, 1 invented just before, aided in the general 
awaking. The story of the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci, 
published in Strassburg in 1 505, was circulated throughout 
Europe, stimulating still more the thirst for discovery. 
When the first flush of wonder and excitement had passed 
away, and the public curiosity in regard to new-found lands 
had been partly satisfied, dreams of empire, schemes of 
profitable trade, and a wild greed for gold, became perma- 
nent incentives to individual and national enterprise. In 
original discovery, England was second only to Spain, send- 
ing out, under John and Sebastian Cabot, an expedition that 
reached, in 1497, the mainland of North America. The 
same year an expedition fitted out by the Portuguese, 
under Vasco da Gama, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, 
and opened a new way by water to the commerce of India. 
The Revival of Letters. — The art of printing had 
quickened the spirit of inquiry in other directions. There 
was in England a great revival of letters. On the taking 
of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453, many of the 
learned men of Greece found an asylum in Italy. Thither 
flocked students from all quarters, among whom, from 
England, were Grocyn, Linacre, Colet, and Erasmus. On 

1 William Caxton learned the art of printing while in Holland, where in 1471 
he printed a book entitled "The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye." He brought 
his press to England in 1476, reign of Edward IV., and the next year published a 
work entitled "The Game and Playe of Chess." Long before the Christian Era 
the Chinese were familiar with block printing, and its use in Germany dates from 
the year 1438. Gutenberg invented cut metal types in 1444 ; Schoffer, types cast 
in hollow molds in 1452. 



HENRY VII 129 

their return to England, fired with zeal, they awakened a 
new enthusiasm in the study of Grecian and Roman litera- 
ture ; and the Bible, that, in rare and costly manuscript, 
had been accessible to only a privileged few, reproduced 
in cheap editions, in print, was brought within the reach 
of many. Men began to think for themselves, not only 
in philosophy and science but in politics and religion. 
The discovery of a new world, awaking the spirit of in- 
vestigation and enterprise, gave an immense impetus to 
the intellectual development just beginning under Colet. 
In the language of Green, " The human mind seemed to 
gather new energies at the sight of the vast field which 
opened before it." And here, too, we find the source and 
beginning of modern civilization, based not on the essen- 
tial slavery of the feudal system, as was the mediaeval, 
but on the growing intelligence and increasing importance 
of the masses of the people. 

The Character and Policy of Henry. — With little love 
for learning himself, Henry had looked with an eye of 
cold suspicion on the signs of a new intellectual life bright- 
ening all around him. Even the discovery of land beyond 
the Atlantic hardly disturbed the impassive king. He 
had been willing, indeed, that the Cabots should sail on 
a voyage of discovery, at their own expense, and he 
showed some appreciation of their grand achievement, 
by rewarding them with a present of ten pounds when 
they returned and laid a new world at his feet. 

Henry was businesslike and miserly. He kept two 
lawyers busy finding " cases " and exacting fines. Obso- 
lete statutes, forgotten tenures, and petty violations of law 
were so many dragnets, that swept into the courts multi- 
LAN. ENG. HIST. 9 



130 THE TUDORS 

tudes of men, whose fines poured into the royal treasury a 
constant stream of wealth. He revived " benevolences," 
but improved upon the plan of Edward IV., who sought 
gifts only from the rich, by exacting them from the poor 
as well. 1 He omitted no opportunity to grasp the estates 
of those attainted, and made a large income from the rigid 
execution of the Statute of Liveries. 

In feudal times the castles of the barons were like armed 
camps. Crowds of idle retainers, feeding on the bounty 
of their lordly masters, were ever ready, at their bidding, 
to storm a castle or menace a throne. The Statute of Liv- 
eries, enacted in a preceding reign, was designed to break 
up these great military establishments. Having fallen 
into disuse, it was revived and executed by Henry, with 
fine and forfeiture. 2 A new court, called the " Star Cham- 
ber," was appointed to have special reference to cases 
coming under this statute, — a court that, being solely 
under the control of the king, became, in later reigns, 

1 By a cunning device, called from its author " Morton's fork," he demanded 
money of those who made a display in their style of living, for display was evidence 
of wealth, and exacted gifts from those who made no display, on the ground that 
such must have grown rich by their economy. 

2 Bacon tells an amusing story, highly illustrative of Henry's avaricious charac- 
ter : " There remaineth to this day a report that the king was, on a time, entertained 
by the Earl of Oxford, — that was his principal servant, both for peace and war, — 
nobly and sumptuously, at his castle at Henningham. And at the king's going 
away the earl's servants stood, in a seemly manner, in their livery coats, with cogni- 
zances, ranged on both sides, and made the king a lane. The king called the earl 
to him, and said : ' My lord, I have heard much of your hospitality, but I see it is 
greater than the speech. These handsome gentlemen and yeomen, which I see on 
both sides of me, are sure your menial servants.' The earl smiled, and said, ' It 
may please your grace, that were not for mine ease. They are most of them my 
retainers, that are come to do me service at such a time as this, and chiefly to see 
your grace.' The king started a little, and said: ' By my faith, my lord, I thank 
you for your good cheer, but I may not endure to have my laws broken in my sight. 
My attorney must speak with you.' And it is part of the report that the earl com- 
pounded for no less than fifteen thousand marks." 



HENRY VIII 131 

the instrument of great oppression. By sharp practice 
and rigid economy Henry was able to amass an immense 
fortune (;£ 10,000,000 present value) for his son and suc- 
cessor to squander. 

Though he was avaricious by nature, there was a policy 
in Henry's desire to be rich. He had one grand purpose 
ever in view, — the establishment of the Tudor throne 
on a safe and solid basis. He well knew that the great 
power of the Commons lay in their control of the public 
funds, and that the possession of abundant means on the 
part of the king was the royal road to independence. He 
exerted himself, therefore, to obtain money without ap- 
pealing to Parliament, and was so successful that there 
was but one session of Parliament during the last thir- 
teen years of his reign. 

He tried still further to fortify his house by con- 
necting it, through marriage alliances, with the reigning 
families of Europe. His son Arthur was married to 
Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess, and his daugh- 
ter Margaret to James Stuart, the King of Scotland. 
Henry died in 1509, and was buried at Westminster, in 
the magnificent chapel which he himself had built, and 
which still bears his name. He was succeeded by his 
son Henry. 

HENRY VIII., 1509 TO 1547 — 38 YEARS 

Character of Henry VIII. — Henry VIII. came to the 
throne under circumstances peculiarly favorable. Repre- 
senting in his own person the rival houses of York and 
Lancaster, he received their cordial and united support. 
Henry was eighteen years of age, a handsome, generous, 



132 THE TUDORS 

and popular prince. But he changed much in disposition 
as he grew older. Naturally passionate and impulsive, and 
unused to self-control, he became, with opposition, malig- 
nant and unrelenting. He was as prodigal as his father 
had been penurious, and wasted in a few years the great 
fortune he inherited. One of the first official acts of the 
young king was designed to satisfy popular clamor. Emp- 
son and Dudley, the hated lawyers of Henry VII., were 
brought to the scaffold on a charge of treason. 

Foreign Affairs. — The foreign wars of this reign were 
comparatively unimportant. Henry has been called a 
good soldier, but a bad general. Both the king and 
his principal minister, Thomas Wolsey, were actuated 
more by personal than by national considerations, in the 
foreign relations of the state. At one time Henry was 
ambitious to occupy the vacant German throne; at another, 
Wolsey aspired to fill the vacant papal chair ; and each 
sought to shape the foreign policy of England to meet his 
own interests. In spite of the failures of his predecessors, 
Henry dared to dream of the conquest of France. His 
campaign in that country, in 15 13, is chiefly celebrated 
for the battle of Guinegate, which the French themselves 
laughingly named the " Battle of the Spurs," from the 
amusing haste with which their cavalry, not whipped, but 
well scared, galloped off the battlefield. During Henry's 
absence in France, an event occurred in England of a far 
more serious character. 

The Scots were in league with the French. Invading 
England under the command of their king, James IV., 
they were met at Flodden, the last of the Cheviot Hills, 
by an army under the Earl of Surrey. The bloody battle 



HENRY VIII 133 

that followed left Scotland without a king, and almost 
without a nobility. Ten thousand gallant Scotch knights 
fell on Flodden Field. Being deserted by his allies, Henry 
made peace with the French king, Louis XII., giving 
the latter in marriage the hand of his youngest sister 
Mary. 1 In 1520 there was a meeting between Henry and 
the new King of France, Francis I., in English territory. 
The place of the meeting has been called the " Field of 
the Cloth of Gold," from the magnificence of the display. 

The most important of Henry's foreign relations was 
with the Pope of Rome. 

The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon. — Henry had mar- 
ried Catherine of Aragon, his brother Arthur's widow, 
soon after coming to the throne. He had been betrothed 
to her by his father years before, a special dispensation 
being obtained from the Pope, as such a union was for- 
bidden by the Levitical law and a canon of the church. 
Nearly twenty years after this marriage had taken place, 
Henry began to have what he called conscientious scru- 
ples about its legality. He coupled these scruples with 
his " despair of having male issue by Catherine to inherit 
the realm." He had but one living child, a daughter 
Mary. Another dispensation was now required to an- 
nul his union with Catherine before he could form a 

1 Louis XII. soon died, and Henry sent Charles Francis Brandon, Duke of 
Suffolk, to France, to bring his widowed sister back to England. Now it happened 
that Brandon was an old and accepted lover of Mary's, and her wishes had not 
been consulted by Henry when he gave her to the French king ; princesses' wishes 
rarely were in those old times. Taking advantage of so favorable an opportunity, 
Brandon and Mary were married in France before they returned to England. 
Henry was, at first, very angry, but soon forgave them. They had a daughter, 
Lady Frances Brandon, who married Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset. Lady 
Jane Grey, whose sad history we are soon to relate, was the offspring of this 
marriage. 



134 THE TUDORS 

new alliance. Cardinal Wolsey was commissioned to 
secure it. Charles V., Emperor of Germany, nephew to 
Catherine, had captured Rome, and made the Pope a 
virtual prisoner in the Castle of St. Angelo. For the 
latter to give the desired dispensation would offend 
Charles ; to refuse it would displease Henry. Delay, 
then, on the part of the Pope, in making a decision that 
might involve both the peace of Europe and the welfare 
of the church, was but an act of ordinary prudence. For 
two years was the impatient king kept in suspense, his 
impatience made all the greater by the violence of his 
passion for Anne Boleyn, a pretty maid of honor to the 
queen. At length, in 1529, a legatine commission, com- 
posed of Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio, was appointed 
to try the case in England. 

After sitting about two months, and just as Henry was 
expecting a favorable judgment, the commission unex- 
pectedly adjourned, and the sanguine hopes of the king 
were suddenly dashed to the ground. The Pope then 
ordered the case to be tried at Rome, thus sealing the fate 
of Wolsey, and making a rupture with the Holy See in- 
evitable. 

The Gordian knot of the divorce was finally cut by the 
ingenuity of Bishop Cranmer, who suggested to the de- 
lighted king the reference of the whole question to the 
universities of Europe. The Pope forbade the divorce of 
Catherine and the marriage with Anne Boleyn, on pain of 
excommunication. But a majority of the universities, for 
various reasons, decided in Henry's favor, and Cranmer, 
now made Archbishop of Canterbury, pronounced, in 1533, 
Henry's union with Catherine null and void. Anne Boleyn, 



HENRY VIII I35 

already married to the king, was publicly crowned Queen 
of England. The noble Queen Catherine, who had re- 
sisted to the utmost the disgrace and injustice heaped upon 
her, died in a few years, honored for her virtues and piety. 

Cardinal Wolsey. — Cardinal Wolsey was the son of a 
butcher, and was educated at Oxford. Brilliant talents 
had brought him to the notice of Henry VII., from whom 
he had received the appointment of royal chaplain. He 
afterward attracted the attention of Henry VIII., who 
raised him from one position to another until he became 
Lord Chancellor of the kingdom, and Cardinal in the 
church, and finally Papal Legate. 

For twenty years he had stood at the head of church and 
state, the most powerful, if not the most able, subject that 
England ever had. His genius was unequaled for breadth 
or versatility. He could play the courtier and amuse the 
idle hours of the pleasure-loving king with ceaseless sallies 
of wit and mirth, or he could act the statesman, and guide 
with consummate skill the most intricate affairs of the 
government. It is interesting to follow him, after his 
failure to secure Henry's divorce, as he leaves the scenes 
of his former pomp and splendor, and devotes himself 
with simplicity and meekness to the ordinary duties of a 
parish priest, visiting the sick and dying, giving alms to 
the poor and needy, and ministering in countless ways to 
the temporal and spiritual wants of his grateful people. 
In about a year, the king ordered his arrest on a charge of 
high treason. He had committed no new offense, and had 
been pardoned for the old one ; but he had an unforgiving 
enemy in Anne Boleyn. 

In the charge of the keeper of the Tower, Wolsey com- 



136 THE TUDORS 

menced his last journey toward London. He was taken 
ill on the road. On reaching Leicester Abbey, conscious 
that his end was drawing near, he said to the Father 
Abbot, as the latter gave him a kindly welcome, " I am 
come hither to leave my bones among you." This was 
Saturday night. The following Tuesday, November 29, 
1 53 1, when at the point of death, he gave utterance to 
those ever memorable words, " If I had served God as dili- 
gently as I have done the king, he would not have given 
me over in my gray hairs." 1 The ingratitude of Henry 
VIII. was the basest of his many faults. He could crush 
long-tried and faithful servants with as little feeling as that 
with which he would tread upon the meanest reptile. 

The Oxford Reformers. — We return once more to the 
beginning of Henry's reign. The young king, though 
fond of pleasure and display, was scholarly in his tastes 
and well educated, and carefully fostered the new spirit of 
enterprise and mental activity among his people. Colet, 
who had been made Dean of St. Paul's by Henry VII., 
became, under the present king, head of a new school for 
the study of Latin and Greek literature; More was ap- 
pointed to some civil office, and later, at the fall of Wolsey, 
to the chancellorship ; Erasmus received a professorship 
at Cambridge. These zealous pioneers in the new world 
of thought and conscience vigorously applied themselves 
to the work of reform. 

1 These words, addressed to Master Knighton, the constable of the Tower, who 
had been sent by the king to convey Wolsey to prison, have been crystallized by the 
genius of Shakespeare : — 

" O Cromwell, Cromwell, — 
Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my king, He would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 



HENRY VIII I37 

Erasmus. — Erasmus, with a moral courage that reminds 
us of Wickliffe, wrote book after book in which he aimed 
at reformation in politics and religion as well as learning, 
now arraigning and ridiculing the follies and foibles of the 
monks and men of various professions, and now address- 
ing the consciences of men in the most tender and affect- 
ing appeals. In his " Praise of Folly," he makes Folly, 
dressed in cap and bells, describe, in a speech to her asso- 
ciates, the religious teachers of the day, the old schoolmen, 
as " men who knew all about things of which St. Paul was 
ignorant, could talk science as though they had been con- 
sulted when the world was made, could give you the di- 
mensions of heaven as though they had been there and 
measured it with plumb and line, men who professed uni- 
versal knowledge, and yet had not time to read the Gospels 
or the Epistles of St. Paul." But the work of Erasmus 
most potent in its influence was his edition of the New 
Testament, in parallel columns, one in Greek and the other 
in Latin. Several editions were required to meet the pop- 
ular demand. Said Erasmus, in speaking of the Scrip- 
tures in his preface, " I wish that they were translated into 
all languages, so as to be read and understood not only by 
Scots and Irishmen, but even by Saracens and Turks. I 
long for the day when the husbandman shall sing portions 
of them to himself as he follows the plow, when the 
weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, when the 
traveler shall while away with their stories the weariness 
of his journey." 

Thomas More. — From the prophetic pen of More ap- 
peared a work entitled " Utopia," or Nowhere, a satire on 
the times, especially the reign of Henry VII. Utopia was 



138 THE TUDORS ' 

an ideal commonwealth which an imaginary companion of 
Amerigo Vespucci, deserted on the American continent, 
found somewhere in the midst of the wilds. It had wide 
and clean streets, comfortable houses, a system of public 
schools in which every child received a good education, 
perfect religious toleration, and universal suffrage, though 
with a family, and not an individual ballot ; and the sole 
object of the government was the good of the whole 
people, and not the pleasure of the king. Had More's 
pseudo-voyager but wandered to the American continent 
a few centuries later, he would have found his model 
"Utopia" a real as well as an ideal republic. 

Opposition to the Oxford Reformers. — This is but a 
slight glance at the work of the Oxford Reformers, ex- 
tending through a period of forty years, in educating the 
people of England up to a higher plane of intelligence, 
and in preparing the way for that second and still greater 
movement that began in Germany under Luther one year 
after More wrote his " Utopia," and in England soon after. 
It must not be supposed that the old schoolmen and theo- 
logians were silent while the reformers were busy remov- 
ing the very foundations of their ancient temples. They 
bitterly opposed the reformation at every step. More 
once wrote to Colet, " No wonder your school raises a 
storm, for it is like the wooden horse filled with armed 
Greeks for the destruction of Troy." And such it proved. 
So popular did it become that others of a similar character, 
followed ; and it is said that in the latter part of Henry's 
reign more schools were founded than in three centuries 
before. Repeated attempts were made to destroy Colet ; 
once when from the royal pulpit and in the very presence 



HENRY VIII 139 

of the king, Colet had denounced the French wars, in 
which the king had enlisted so heartily ; and again when, 
at a convocation of bishops and clergy, being appointed to 
deliver the opening sermon, he boldly charged many of 
them with living worldly and immoral lives. The bishops 
of London, with others, lodged a charge of heresy against 
him. Said the bluff king to those who sought his help 
against Colet, " Let every man have his own doctor, but 
this man is the doctor for me." To Henry's protection 
did the Oxford Reformers owe their personal safety, and. 
to his encouragement was the New Learning indebted for 
its rapid progress. And yet the very men he shielded 
from the most vindictive enemies, he hesitated not to 
destroy at their slightest opposition to his own will. 

Martin Luther and the Reformation. — More than a cen- 
tury had passed away since Wickliffe inaugurated the 
First Reformation. We are now brought to the threshold 
of the second, under Luther, on whom Wickliffe's mantle 
seemed to have fallen. Martin Luther was educated for 
the law, but in 1505 he entered a monastery at Erfurt, and 
in 1508 became preacher at the University of Wittenberg, 
lately founded by the Elector of Saxony. Pope Julius II. 
was ambitious to erect a temple of unrivaled splendor at 
Rome. He published an indulgence in Poland and 
France, which Leo X. extended to the northern provinces 
of Germany. In 15 17 Luther, learning that one of the 
agents of the Pope was about to come to Wittenberg, nailed 
to the doors of his church his famous propositions for 
debate, ninety-five in number, concerning the abuse of 
indulgences, and the next day (day of All-Saints) read 
them to the assembled parish. The Pope's agent was 



140 THE TUDORS ' 

forbidden by the Elector, Luther's protector, to enter his 
dominions. The controversy that followed, called the 
" Controversy of the Monks," soon attracted the attention 
of Leo, to whom Luther addressed a most submissive 
letter. But upon the publication by Leo that the Pope, 
as successor to St. Peter and vicar of Christ upon earth, 
possessed the power of granting, for reasonable causes, 
certain indulgences, Luther appealed to a general council. 
When all efforts to reclaim Luther had failed, the Pope 
issued against him a bull of excommunication. This 
Luther publicly burned, and in 1521 he was summoned for 
trial before the Diet of Worms, over which the German 
Emperor himself presided. Luther boldly maintained all 
his declarations before that august assembly, refusing to 
recant or abjure, and was condemned as a heretic. Hav- 
ing a safe pass for three weeks, he retired to a secret 
castle in the Thuringian forest, and then, after a few 
months, to Wittenberg, and henceforth devoted himself 
to the work which he had undertaken, the reformation of 
the church. The emperor then issued his edict against 
Luther, consigning him to death at the stake ; but before 
the sentence could be executed all Germany was ablaze 
with the fires of reformation and revolt, and the emperor 
had little time to kindle that for the martyrdom of Luther. 
Thus began the Great Reformation, but it did not end 
in Germany. We are soon to see it cross the English 
Channel, and separate England and Scotland from the 
Papal See. Nor does it cease till, in the progress of time, 
it has brought within its resistless sweep the nations of 
Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and the Nether- 
lands. 



HENRY VIII 141 

The Reformation in England. — England was fully 
awake to the events occurring in Germany. King 
Henry, although a friend to reform in the church, still 
held to its principal tenets. While the Diet of Worms 
was in session, he had written a book against Luther, 
for which, in gratitude, the Pope had called him " De- 
fender of the Faith," a title still borne by the sovereigns 
of England. We have seen how, a little later, in 1529, 
a breach had occurred between the king and the Pope, 
on account of the divorce of Catherine. This gradually 
widened into complete alienation and then separation. 
By successive acts of Parliament, beginning in 1531 and 
ending in 1534, Rome and England, bound together for 
eight hundred years by that most sacred of ties, a common 
faith, were sundered forever. The most important of 
these enactments forbade all appeals to the Pope, extin- 
guished papal jurisdiction over England, and declared 
the King of England to be the supreme head of the 
Church of England. It was now that the bull of excom- 
munication, long held over the head of Henry, was hurled 
against him. But the Rubicon had been crossed, and 
there was no alternative but a march on Rome. 

Bishop Fisher and Thomas More executed. — Speech 
against the Pope was no longer heresy : but denial of 
Henry's supremacy was made high treason. For the lat- 
ter offense perished on the scaffold, in 1535, Fisher, the 
good Bishop of Rochester, who came to the scene of his 
death with a copy of the New Testament in his hand, and 
read, as he knelt to lay his head upon the block, the 
words, " This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true 
God." For this, too, perished More, one of the most 



142 THE TUDORS ' 

learned men in Christendom, who, believing the Pope to 
be the divinely appointed head of the church, had resigned 
his office on Henry's assumption of supremacy. He had 
been a lifelong reformer ; but he had labored for a reform 
of the church and not separation from it. The Emperor 
Charles is said to have exclaimed when told of the death 
of More, " I would rather have lost the best city in my 
dominions than so worthy a counselor." 

Henry Supreme in Church and State. — By Act of Par- 
liament, Henry now stood at the head of both church and 
state. He dictated the utterances of the pulpit as well 
as the enactments of Parliament ; he controlled the ecclesi- 
astical as well as the civil courts ; he declared what was 
truth and what heresy. Bishops and archbishops held 
their places only at his pleasure, and he claimed for him- 
self all the revenues that for centuries had flowed so 
steadily to the Vatican. No priest could preach without a 
royal license, and no license was given without the oath 
of supremacy. Every priest was compelled to declare to 
his assembled parish their absolution from allegiance to 
the Pope, and the duty of obedience to the new head 
of the church. Thus were the mute and bewildered peo- 
ple, constrained by respect for law on the one hand, and 
reverence for religion on the other, carried peacefully 
through the first and most critical step of a great religious 
revolution. In other nations the Reformation advanced 
only through a sea of blood. It is a pertinent inquiry, to 
what extent the peace and order that marked the Refor- 
mation in England were due to the overshadowing char- 
acter of the throne, and the iron will of the despot that 
occupied it. As if to remove the last shadow of a limita- 



HENRY VIII I43 

tion to the authority of the king, Parliament enacted that 
royal proclamations should have the force of statutes ; and 
it is affirmed that during the sessions of Parliament, if 
Henry's name were but mentioned in his absence, the 
members would rise and bow before the vacant throne. 
Henry's next step was to reform the faith and practice of 
the church. He drew up with his own hand the articles 
of religion. 1 These showed that the king had taken the 
middle ground between Protestants 2 and Catholics. They 
were essentially the views Erasmus had so long labored 
to impress upon the English people. The bishops and 
clergy gradually fell into the new order of things, but the 
monks remained unreconciled. 

The Suppression of the Religious Houses. — A commis- 
sion was appointed to visit the religious houses. They 
reported a larger part of them as corrupt and immoral, 



1 They made the Bible the sole ground of faith ; reduced the sacraments from 
seven to three, namely: Penance, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper; retained trans- 
substantiation and confession, but added justification by faith ; and rejected pil- 
grimages, purgatory, indulgences, the worship of images and relics, and masses for 
the dead. The Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer were required to be 
taught in every school and family. A copy of Tyndall's Bible, the first ever trans- 
lated into English, revised by Coverdale in 1535, was ordered to be chained to the 
pillar or desk of even' church in England, and to be open to the reading of all. 
In 1539 a translation of the Bible was made by Cranmer. • 

2 After the decision of the Diet of Worms, in 1521, Charles V., Emperor of Ger- 
many, issued an edict against Luther and the Lutheran heresy. A quarrel arose in 
1526 between Charles and the Pope, and the former threw his influence against the 
latter in the Diet of Spires, then in session, and a decree, entirely annulling the 
Edict of Worms, was issued, to the following effect : Each state should, as regards 
the Edict of Worms, so live, rule, and bear itself as it thought it could answer 
it to God and the Emperor. The different German states thus became either 
Lutheran or Catholic, as they chose. But Charles soon settled his quarrel with 
the Pope, and as a result the second Diet of Spires, held in 1529, reenacted the 
Edict of Worms and forbade further reform without the sanction of a regular council. 
Against this decision the Lutheran princes of Germany entered their "protest," and 
were therefore called " Protestants." 



144 THE TUDORS 

and so, by statute, nunneries and monasteries were broken 
up, their inmates being turned out into the world, and 
their revenues poured into the royal treasury. Ten thou- 
sand nuns alone were made homeless by the cruel statute, 
which was probably inspired by no higher motive than the 
greed of the king for the wealth of the church. At the 
same time the tombs and shrines of the saints, many of 
them adorned with costly works of art and rich with the 
gifts of countless pilgrims, were robbed of their treasures 
and ruthlessly destroyed. The most famous of these was 
the tomb of Thomas a Becket, from which two great 
chests of gold and jewels were borne away to the royal 
coffers. This was followed by several risings, especially 
among the nobles in the north and west. These were 
readily put down, and the executions that followed remind 
us of the Wars of the Roses. Henry's principal minister, 
after the retirement of More, was Thomas Cromwell. 
He had taken service with Wolsey, and remained his 
friend to the last. When Wolsey retired in disgrace to 
his see of York, Cromwell went to London to " make or 
mar," as he expressed it. It was Cromwell who suggested 
to the king to solve the papal problem by declaring his 
own supremacy. He became a member of Parliament and 
was indefatigable in his efforts to save Wolsey. He then 
became Henry's chief minister, and, when supremacy had 
been achieved, vicegerent of the church. 

The Bloody Statute. — The Reformation had advanced 
with rapid strides, and was attended with many excesses 
on the part of extremists. A reaction was the result ; and 
this led to the enactment, in 1539, at the dictation of the 
king, of a statute containing six articles, called by Fox 



HENRY VIII 145 

"the whip with six strings," reaffirming the cardinal 
doctrines of the Catholic Church. The penalty of death, 
by fire or the scaffold, hung over the heads of all who 
violated the terrible statute. The prisons were quickly 
crowded with offenders. Catholics were burned for not 
accepting the Protestant head of the church, and Prot- 
estants were committed to the flames for rejecting the 
Catholic faith. The execution of this statute was relaxed 
after a few months, else it were difficult to see how there 
could have been a consistent Protestant or Catholic left in 
England. 

Henry's Wives. — Henry, in 1509, married Catherine of 
Aragon, who was divorced in 1533, having had a daughter, 
Mary. The same year he married Anne Boleyn, who was 
beheaded, in 1536, on a charge of being faithless to him, 
leaving a daughter, Elizabeth. The next day he married 
Jane Seymour, who died, in 1537, after giving birth to a 
son, Edward. In 1540 Cromwell arranged a match with 
Anne of Cleves, a German princess. But she was plain 
and awkward, and in a little over six months, Henry 
was divorced from her and married Catherine Howard. 
She, too, was beheaded, in about a year and a half, on a 
charge of unchastity before marriage, and the next year, 
1543, he married Catherine Parr, who survived him. 
Cromwell was brought to the block when the king dis- 
carded Anne of Cleves. 

Henry's Death. — By an Act of Parliament, Henry was 
authorized to bestow the crown according to his own 
pleasure. He bequeathed it to his son Edward, and, after 
him, in default of direct heirs, to Mary, Elizabeth, and 
then the descendants of Henry's sister Mary. The youth 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — IO 



146 THE TUDORS 

and old age of few persons present so great a contrast 
as those of Henry. A graceful and attractive youth, he 
became in old age so gross and offensive in his person 
that few could endure to remain near him. On account 
of his excessive corpulency, he was moved from chamber 
to chamber by mechanical aid. When his last sickness 
came upon him, and death drew near, at first no one dared 
tell him the terrible truth. Conscious at last of the com- 
ing change, he sent for Cranmer, who had retained his 
favor to the last, pressed his hand, and died. 

EDWARD VI., 1547 TO 1553 — 6 YEARS 

The Regency. — The political history of the reign of 
Edward VI., which lasted only six years, is but an uninter- 
esting record of the schemes of ambitious men, aiming at 
wealth and power. Henry VIII. had appointed a council 
of sixteen members, at the head of which stood Cranmer, 
to govern the kingdom until Edward, who was now ten, 
reached the age of eighteen years. This council, disre- 
garding the will of Henry, appointed the Earl of Hertford, 
afterward Duke of Somerset, one of its own members, 
Protector. 

Edward and Mary, Queen of Scots. — By a treaty with 
Scotland, made during the lifetime of Henry, Edward had 
been betrothed to Mary, the young Scottish queen. Som- 
erset urged upon the Scots the execution of the treaty, but 
the combined French and Catholic influence prevailed to 
defeat it. Somerset raised an army and marched into 
Scotland to compel the observance of the treaty. At the 
battle of Pinkie, the last national contest between the two 



EDWARD VI 147 

countries, the Scots were defeated with a loss of ten thou- 
sand men, but they became more bitterly opposed to the 
execution of the treaty than before. The Earl of Huntley 
expressed the prevailing sentiment among the Scotch 
nobles when he said, " I dislike not the match, but hate 
the manner of the wooing." Mary was then sent to 
France to render the marriage impossible. The Earl of 
Warwick, afterward Duke of Northumberland, also a mem- 
ber of the council, secured the overthrow of Somerset 
and his own appointment in his stead. Northumberland 
remained in office to the end of the reign. 

Peasant Revolts. — While Somerset was Protector, peas- 
ant revolts 1 broke out in different parts of the kingdom. 
The most important of these revolts occurred under one 

1 It is not clear as to the exact causes in all cases. It will be remembered that 
after the ravages of the Black Death in the reign of Edward III., the scarcity of la- 
borers caused high wages, and both together wrought a gradual change in the agri- 
cultural policy of the country. The farmers, abandoning crops that required much 
manual labor, turned their arable land into pastures for raising sheep. The sup- 
pression of the monasteries was followed by a like disposition of the church lands, 
the most of which went to satisfy the greed of favorite courtiers and to found a new 
nobility, and were, by their new owners, turned into " enclosures " for sheep culture. 
The agricultural products were thus largely reduced in quantity, but enhanced in 
value. But the people, in the course of time, recovered from the depletions of the 
pestilence, and labor became abundant, and consequently cheap. Besides this, the 
monks had been good to the poor, and were generally beloved. There was a feel- 
ing of heartfelt sympathy for them, as homeless and penniless they wandered about 
the country, begging food and shelter. The monasteries were not corrupt as a rule. 
They had in times past served a useful purpose. They had afforded the means of 
education to the young, given shelter to the traveler, and been a refuge for the 
oppressed, in an age when there were no inns, few schools, and little protection for 
the weak and innocent against the lawless and brutal. The general dissatisfaction, 
especially in the rural districts, at their suppression, caused a reaction against the 
Reformation, and gave rise to plots for the return of Catholicism. All these 
things, therefore, " enclosures" for sheep culture, a surplus of labor and a falling 
scale of wages, small crops and the high price of food, the dissolution of the reli- 
gious houses, together with a debasement of the coinage under Henry VIII., com- 
bined to produce idleness, destitution, and revolt. 



148 THE TUDORS 

Robert Ket, at the head of twenty thousand men. Ket 
established himself at Norwich, as judge and lawgiver for 
all the country around, making his headquarters under 
an oak tree, which he called the " Tree of Reformation." 
The revolts were quelled with the usual barbarities, the 
" Tree of Reformation " serving as a gallows. 

Progress of the Reformation. — But the most prominent 
subject in this reign is the progress of the Reformation. 
Archbishop Cranmer, encouraged by the king, who was a 
zealous Protestant, vigorously carried forward the work 
begun by Henry VIII. The old statutes running back to 
the days of the Lollards, and those of a more recent ori- 
gin on the subject of heresy, as well as the "new-fangled 
treasons" of Henry VIII., were all repealed. The Catho- 
lic clergy were removed from their livings, and their places 
filled with Protestants ; the Latin mass was abolished ; the 
churches were despoiled of their plate, and the paintings 
on the walls and the stained glass in the windows were 
ruthlessly destroyed. The colleges connected with the 
religious houses and the chantries (places where mass was 
said for the dead) were broken up, their revenues being 
used, in part, by Edward, for the endowment of grammar 
schools and hospitals. Perhaps the most important step 
taken in promoting the Reformation was the preparation, 
chiefly by Archbishop Cranmer, of a " Book of Common 
Prayer " Cranmer took as a basis for his work the serv- 
ices that had been in use in the church since the primi- 
tive ages, making such changes in the form of worship as 
the new faith seemed to require. Being acceptable to the 
king, it was adopted by both Houses of Parliament, and 
its use by all the clergy was made obligatory, under pain 



EDWARD VI 149 

of fine and imprisonment. Only two persons suffered at 
the stake during this reign, but many who refused to con- 
form to the Protestant worship went to prison. 

Edward's Will. — Lady Jane Grey, 1 a member of the 
youngest branch of the Tudor family, had married Lord 
Dudley, son of Northumberland. As Edward was in con- 
sumption, and it was evident that he could not long sur- 
vive, Northumberland prevailed upon him to alter the 
succession, and instead of leaving the crown to Mary, the 
rightful heir, to give it to Lady Jane Grey. Edward was 
no doubt chiefly concerned for the safety of the Protestant 
religion, and his last prayer is said to have been that Eng- 
land might be preserved from "Papistry." Lady Jane 
was a Protestant, Mary, a Catholic ; and so zealous was 
the latter, that she continued to hold Catholic services at 
her own house in defiance of all the authorities. North- 
umberland was undoubtedly inspired by no higher motive 
than the aggrandizement of his own family. The failing 
king was placed by him under the care of a woman of 
reputed skill, but he declined more rapidly than before, 
and soon died, at the age of sixteen. Suspicions were not 
wanting that his end had been hastened to make more sure 
and speedy the accomplishment of Northumberland's plans. 
Edward was a youth of great promise, and his death was 
generally lamented. Northumberland at once hurried into 
the presence of Lady Jane Grey, with the intelligence that 
she was now Queen of England. This is said to have 
been her first knowledge that she was Edward's heir, and 
she assumed the crown only in obedience to the commands 
and entreaties of her husband's family. 

1 See note on page 133. 



I 50 THE TUDORS 

MARY, 1553 TO 1558 — 5 YEARS 

Lady Jane Grey. — It had been the intention of the 
conspirators to seize the princesses Mary and Elizabeth 
before the death of Edward became known ; but Mary, 
being notified of its occurrence in season, took refuge 
in a castle on the coast, that she might escape to foreign 
parts, in case the fortunes of war went against her. She 
then prepared to assert her rights by force of arms. 
The usurpation of Northumberland did not meet the 
approval of the people, who gathered rapidly to the 
support of Mary as their lawful sovereign. Lady Jane, 
convinced of her mistake, gladly laid aside the crown 
which she had so reluctantly assumed, and which she 
had worn but ten days, and disappeared entirely from 
the public sight. Her life had been passed in the de- 
lightful pursuits of learning. Though but sixteen years 
of age, she could speak fluently Latin, Greek, French, 
and Italian, and had some acquaintance with Hebrew, 
Chaldee, and Arabic. Beautiful in person, sweet and 
guileless in disposition, and gifted in conversation, she 
was better fitted to shine in domestic and literary than in 
courtly circles. Mary speedily ascended the vacant throne. 
One of her first acts was to bring to the block the guilty 
Northumberland, and to cast into prison the innocent but 
unfortunate Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Dudley. 

The next year a marriage was arranged between Mary 
and Philip of Spain, a zealous Catholic. This match being 
odious to the English people, several risings occurred, 
implicating some of the friends of Lady Jane. The fate 
of the latter was sealed. From her window in the Tower, 



MARY 1 5 I 

she saw the headless body of her husband borne away, 
and in a few hours she followed him to the scaffold. John 
removed one who might be dangerous to his throne, when 
he put to death the little Arthur ; Richard might have 
made the same poor plea when he destroyed the youthful 
princes in the Tower ; Mary had little excuse for putting 
to death this lovely girl, whose only crime was lending a 
too ready obedience to her husband's intriguing father. 

Catholicism restored to England. — Mary was a zealous 
Catholic, and determined to restore England to friendly 
relations with the Papacy. Parliament was assembled and 
proceeded, by statute after statute, to sweep away all the 
legislation of the preceding reigns establishing the Protes- 
tant religion. It refused, however, to reestablish the reli- 
gious houses and restore to them their lands ; but Mary 
conscientiously yielded up all church property that 
remained in possession of the crown. The Catholic 
bishops, who had been incarcerated in the Tower by 
Edward, were restored to their sees. Cardinal Pole, the 
legate of the Pope, was received with great pomp, and, in 
presence of the sovereign and both Houses of Parliament, 
solemnly absolved the nation for its temporary departure 
from the Catholic faith. There soon began an unrelenting 
persecution, but with whom it originated is a matter of 
uncertainty. Bishops Bonner and Gardiner presided over 
the court before which Protestant offenders were brought 
for trial. The statutes originally passed for the repression 
of the Lollards were revived. During the four years of 
this persecution many persons perished by the ax, in 
prison, and at the stake, while thousands fled to foreign 
parts. Bishops Rogers, Hooper, Ridley, and Latimer, 



152 THE TUDORS 

and Archbishop Cranmer, the foremost preachers of the 
preceding reign, were successively committed to the 
flames. Said the aged Latimer to his friend Ridley, as 
side by side they were chained to the iron stake, " Be of 
good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man ; we shall 
this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, 
as I trust shall never be put out." Latimer's prophetic 
words found a speedy fulfillment. The fires of persecution 
enkindled anew the zeal and devotion of the reformers. 
For every life that went out in martyrdom to the cause of 
religious liberty, there were a hundred converts to the 
Protestant faith. 

Mary's Marriage with Philip of Spain. — Mary's mar- 
riage with Philip took place in 1554, but it proved as 
unhappy for herself as it was unpopular with her sub- 
jects. On the part of Philip it had been a matter of mere 
state policy ; on the part of Mary one of positive infatua- 
tion. Even before she had seen Philip, the representa- 
tions which the Spanish legate had made of his master 
inflamed her imagination, and excited her to an almost 
insane desire for the match. She was eleven years 
older than her husband, to whom she became devotedly 
attached, but by whom she was despised and studiously 
neglected. So unmanly was Philip, he even allowed her 
name to be made a subject of jest among the gallants 
of his court. Having received, by the abdication of his 
father, the sovereignty of Spain and the Netherlands, he 
spent most of his time on the continent, partly from his 
aversion to his wife, and partly from disgust at the insig- 
nificant position he occupied in the government of Eng- 
land. Though husband to the queen, and nominally king, 



MARY 153 

he was refused by Parliament both the act of coronation 
and the right of succession. 

Loss of Calais, A.D. 1558. — Spain had engaged in a war 
with France. Philip came to England to secure the aid 
of Mary. A sudden descent of the French upon the 
English coast, and the desire of Mary to please her hus- 
band, led to a treaty with Spain and a declaration of war 
with France. Mary's cup of misery was filled to the brim 
when the news reached her that Calais, the boast and pride 
of England for two centuries, and its last possession on the 
continent, was wrested forever from English rule. As it 
was situated in the midst of marshes, it had been the 
practice to withdraw a portion of the garrison during the 
winter, and the defenses had been of late much neglected. 
Suddenly attacked by sea and land by the Duke of Guise, 
it was forced to surrender, after holding out eight days in 
the vain hope of relief. Said the wretched queen, " When 
I die Calais will be found written on my heart ; " and she 
died, in less than a year, of a broken heart. 

Extenuation of Mary's Cruelty. — While the persecu- 
tions to which Mary was constantly spurring her lagging 
bishops were atrocious, we can at least credit her with 
fidelity to her convictions. Brought up in a court as abso- 
lute as that of an eastern despot, where a human life 
weighed little against a whim of the king, and reigning 
in an age not yet risen to even a faint conception of the 
perfect freedom of opinion which is the crowning glory 
of our own time, she is not solely to be blamed for her 
bigotry and her cruelty. Mary conscientiously and in 
the only way she knew, by force, undertook to extirpate 
what she thought was heresy, and reestablish what she 



154 THE TUDORS 

believed was truth. Nor should the facts of her personal 
history be forgotten. Disowned by her father just as she 
was entering womanhood, and branded as illegitimate by 
statute, and so cherishing for many years a bitter sense of 
wrong ; despised and forsaken by a husband she adored ; 
hated by a people whose welfare she sought to promote ; 
crushed with a sense of shame at the loss of Calais ; and 
worn and wasted with disease, she sank under an over- 
whelming load of woe. The title " Bloody," however justly 
prefixed to the name of Mary, could have been more ap- 
propriately given to her father, for much of whose cruelty 
there is no extenuation. 



ELIZABETH, 1558 TO 1603 — 45 YEARS 

Protestantism restored to England. — The universal 
gloom that had settled over England during the last years 
of Mary's cruel reign, full of indications of a coming 
storm, passed quickly away amidst the pealing bells and 
blazing bonfires that everywhere greeted Elizabeth's 
accession to power. The very day she entered London, 
the prison doors were opened wide to all confined for con- 
science' sake, still further heightening the universal joy. 
The first official act of the new queen was to restore the 
Protestant religion. The "oath of supremacy" required 
all bishops, priests, and civil officers to acknowledge Eliza- 
beth as the supreme head of the church, and to deny 
allegiance to all foreign authority. By foreign authority 
was meant the Pope. All the bishops but one or two, 
refusing to take this oath, were removed from their sees, 
and Protestants were put in their places. But the priests 



ELIZABETH 1 55 

in the country parishes, almost without exception, took the 
required oath, and were not disturbed. As fast as their 
places, from any cause, became vacant, they were filled by 
Protestant clergymen, so that, in process of time, all the 
pulpits in the kingdom came to be in sympathy with 
the new religion. The "Act of Uniformity" required all 
the people to conform to the usages of the established 
church. Even the neglect of public worship was pun- 
ished with fine and imprisonment. The Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, somewhat improved, returned to its old place 
in the religious service. Thirty-nine "Articles of Faith" 
became the standard of religious belief. 

The Puritans. — There appeared during this reign a 
new sect of Protestants called Puritans. The persecu- 
tions of Mary had driven into exile thousands of English 
Protestants. Many of them took refuge in Geneva, 
where, under Zwingli and Calvin, the Reformation had 
taken a more radical type than in England. By the 
Calvinists, as the Swiss reformers were called, the sur- 
plice, liturgy, and bishops of Episcopacy, and every form 
and ceremony peculiar to Rome, were utterly discarded. 
Even that beautiful symbol, the cross, was banished as 
an abomination, not only from religious worship, but from 
the church edifice itself ; and " merry Christmas," the 
joyful anniversary of the birth of our Lord, was meta- 
morphosed into a solemn fast, because both cross and 
Christmas were so intimately associated with the Papacy. 
When Mary died, the English exiles returned to their 
homes, but brought with them the plainer worship and 
stricter mode of life they had learned to love abroad. 
The severe simplicity and purity of their religious faith, 



156 THE TUDORS 

made the rule and compass of their daily life, produced 
character of the type of Sparta, of the mold of early 
Rome. Puritanism was a reform of Episcopacy, as the 
latter had been of Catholicism ; so that Episcopacy occu- 
pied a middle ground between the two extremes. It 
retained many of the forms and ceremonies of the Papacy, 
while its system of faith was like that of the Puritans. 

Despite the Puritans' narrowness and bigotry — for they 
did not rise entirely above the age in which they lived — 
there is nothing grander in all history than their achieve- 
ments during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
One of these was the settlement of the Plymouth Colony 
in New England. How it ennobles our conceptions of 
humanity and deepens our faith in virtue to read the in- 
spiring story of the Pilgrim Fathers — the story of their 
sublime fortitude, patience, suffering, as with unquestioning 
faith they obeyed the simple voice of conscience ! They 
shrank from no sacrifice, exhibited unconscious heroism 
combined with the deepest humility, and achieved the 
grandest results without a thought of worldly fame. That 
little colony, with other early settlements, has become a 
mighty nation, the refuge of the oppressed of all the 
earth. 

Dangers that environed Elizabeth. — Many dangers be- 
set Elizabeth on her accession to the throne and during 
the earlier years of her reign. The government was 
deeply in debt, there was no money in the treasury, and 
the coinage had been debased. The English Channel was 
infested with pirates, commerce was nearly extinguished, 
and the national industries were in a languishing state. 
There was civil strife in Ireland, and war with France. 



ELIZABETH 1 57 

Though the Puritans were a source of increasing em- 
barrassment to Elizabeth, on account of the rapid increase 
in their numbers and their sturdy adherence to their 
peculiar views, her chief danger lay in the hostility of the 
Catholics, both at home and abroad. Pope Clement VII. 
had never recognized Anne Boleyn as the lawful wife of 
Henry VIII., and Paul IV. now refused to acknowledge 
Elizabeth as their lawful issue, saying to the English 
ambassador sent to announce her accession, that Eliza- 
beth, being illegitimate, could not ascend the throne with- 
out his consent. "Let her," said he, "in the first place 
submit her claims to my decision." Later, when Elizabeth 
had taken her stand as a Protestant, Pius V. issued against 
her a bull of excommunication, and joined a league of 
Catholic powers to remove her from the throne and ele- 
vate Mary, Queen of Scots, her next of kin and prospec- 
tive heir. 

Her course in matters of religion, as well as her refusal 
of the offer of Philip's hand, shortly after her accession, 
entirely alienated Philip of Spain, who, for political rea- 
sons, was at first inclined to be friendly. Philip was the 
most powerful monarch in Europe. His empire embraced 
Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, portions of Italy, the 
most of South America, and the Indies, East and West. 
His armies had more than once marched to the gates 
of Paris, and his fleets commanded every sea. France 
was as hostile as Spain to the government of Elizabeth, 
warmly supporting the claims of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
to the English throne. 

Elizabeth's Policy. — With a title somewhat precarious, 
the ruler of a part of one small island, whose population 



158 THE TUDORS 

did not exceed six millions, without soldiers, ships, or 
allies, Elizabeth would have invited disaster, in the earlier 
part of her reign, if she had courted conflict with any 
of the hostile nations around her. She needed time and 
peace, to enable her to establish her personal author- 
ity, to plant the Church of England on a solid basis, to 
develop the resources of the kingdom, and to build up 
a navy. To preserve peace and gain time taxed, con- 
stantly and to the utmost, the resources of Elizabeth and 
her ablest ministers. It was for this that she alternately 
raised and dashed the hopes of half a dozen royal suitors 
for her hand. It was for this that she engaged in end- 
less negotiations and perpetual intrigues with foreign 
powers, holding Spain at bay by threatening alliance 
with France, and keeping France in check through fear 
of a treaty with Spain, deceiving neither, in fact, but 
outwitting and perplexing both. While accomplishing 
her object, the preservation of peace, she won for her- 
self that reputation for duplicity and mendacity, in her 
public as well as her private relations, that has left so 
indelible a stain on her memory. 

Whether deliberately planned or not, the moderate 
ground she had at first taken in religion added to her 
personal power and to the peace of her kingdom. She 
punished no man for his opinion, so long as he con- 
formed to the requirements of the established church ; 
and this was a step far in advance of her predecessors, 
as well as of the age in which she lived. Had she taken 
decided ground with either Catholic or Puritan extreme, 
she must, sooner or later, have faced a Puritan or a 
Catholic revolt. As it was, the great body of both reli- 



ELIZABETH 1 59 

gious sects remained stanch in their loyalty ; and when at 
length the long-deferred crisis came, and Philip, toward 
the end of her reign, undertook the conquest of Eng- 
land, they rallied with fervent devotion around the royal 
standard. Side by side in the muster at Tilbury stood 
Catholic, Puritan, and Episcopalian, alike ready to die 
for their country and queen. Catholic gentry and Puri- 
tan traders alike offered their ships, all manned and 
equipped, for the struggle with the " Great Armada." 
When the threatened invasion had ended in disaster, and 
the galleons of Philip, beaten and broken, had straggled 
up the Tagus, a mere remnant of the mighty armament 
that had sailed out so proudly a few months before, and 
when England at once came to the front, undisputed 
mistress of the seas, the early peaceful policy of the 
great queen was amply vindicated. She might then have 
appropriated the proud boast of the great but patient 
Mazarin : "Time and I against any two." 

This is a general view of the policy pursued by Eliza- 
beth during the greater part of her reign, under the 
guidance of her able ministers, Burleigh and Walsing- 
ham. There remain to be noticed, briefly and con- 
nectedly, the relation of Mary, Queen of Scots, to English 
history, and the well-matured but ill-starred expedition of 
Philip, just alluded to. 

Mary, Queen of Scots. — Mary, Queen of Scots, 1 though 
passed over in the will of Henry VIII., was the next 
heir to the throne after Elizabeth. She had been be- 



1 Margaret, the eldest daughter of Henry VII., married James IV. of Scotland. 
Their son, James V., was the father of Mary, who inherited the kingdom under 
the title of Mary, Queen of Scots. 



l60 THE TUDORS 

trothed, when an infant, to Prince Edward, Henry's son 
and successor ; but French and Catholic influence availed 
not only to break up the match with Edward, but to 
effect her marriage with the Dauphin, who, upon the 
death of his father, assumed the French crown, under 
the title of Francis II. Mary, Queen of Scotland by 
inheritance, Queen of France by marriage, now assumed 
the title of Queen of England, claiming, as did the 
Catholic world in general, that Elizabeth was not the 
rightful sovereign. 

The Reformation, under the preaching of John Knox, 
had made great progress in Scotland. A French force 
had been sent to that country, for the double purpose of 
crushing out the Reformation and strengthening French 
interests. Elizabeth, conscious that her kingdom, as well 
as the Protestant religion, was menaced by the action of 
France, hurried an army across the border to the help 
of the Scots. The French army was besieged in Leith 
and forced to sue for peace. By the Treaty of Edin- 
burgh, the French engaged to leave the country, and 
Mary was to renounce her claims to the English throne 
during the lifetime of Elizabeth. Mary refused to ratify 
her part of the treaty, and persisted in her refusal till 
near the end of her life. At the death of her husband, 
Francis II., she returned to her kingdom of Scotland 
and soon married Lord Darnley, the next heir to the 
Scottish throne. 

Mary and Darnley were ardent Catholics, but their 
subjects were largely Protestant ; and there naturally 
arose on the part of the latter great apprehension as to 
the future policy of the government in matters of reli- 



ELIZABETH l6l 

gion. They sought to obtain from the queen a formal 
recognition of Protestantism as the national religion. 
This Mary would not give, but she expressed her readi- 
ness to assent to perfect religious toleration. The Prot- 
estants, believing that she designed the restoration of 
Catholicism, rose in arms. Putting herself at the head 
of her troops, with " pistols at her saddlebow," the reso- 
lute queen soon quelled the revolt, and the banished 
lords took refuge in England. 

Though Mary was but little over twenty-three years of 
age, she had reached the critical period in her career. We 
are soon to see her fall, either innocent of serious offense 
but hopelessly entangled in. a network of misfortunes, or 
guilty of heinous crime and richly meriting the doom she 
speedily met. Since history has failed to furnish conclu- 
sive evidence of her guilt, let us remember her as the un- 
fortunate Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Mary's love and respect were changed to dislike and 
contempt for a husband who treated her unkindly and 
was addicted to many vices. Darnley, attributing the 
change in her feelings to the influence of her private 
secretary, Rizzio, of whom he was also jealous, entered 
the queen's apartments at the head of a band of disaf- 
fected nobles and slew Rizzio, almost in her very presence, 
alike indifferent to her menaces and entreaties. Though 
she was apparently reconciled to her husband, the Earl of 
Bothwell became her confidential adviser, and, at last, the 
object of her affections. In less than a year after the 
murder of Rizzio, a house in Edinburgh, called the Kirk of 
Field, where Darnley was lying sick, was one night blown 
up with gunpowder, and its unhappy inmate was killed. 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — II. 



I 62 THE TUDORS 

That Bothwell was guilty of the crime is morally certain ; 
but that Mary was accessory to it, there is no conclusive 
proof. Her speedy marriage with Bothwell, under cir- 
cumstances peculiarly suspicious, created the most intense 
excitement. The Scotch lords flew to arms, and made the 
queen their prisoner. She was required to choose between 
war and the banishment of Bothwell. She chose the 
latter, 1 and was then hurried to Castle Lochleven, and 
forced to resign her crown in favor of her infant son. 

Escaping in I £68, after nine months of captivity in the 
lonely island castle, she rallied her adherents, lost the 
battle of Langside, and was chased to the Solway, which 
she crossed in a boat, taking refuge in England. She 
demanded of Elizabeth a passage to France, or an army 
to recover her kingdom. Her demands were met by a 
royal order for her detention, and then her imprisonment. 
If she had been a cause of alarm to Elizabeth before, she 
became doubly so now. Her release and elevation to the 
English throne itself became the object of plot after plot 
among Catholics, both at home and abroad. Pope Pius V. 
issued a decree of deposition against Elizabeth. Jesuit and 
Seminary missionaries came into the kingdom in unusual 
numbers, claiming to be inspired only by a desire to per- 
petuate the Catholic faith, but believed by Elizabeth to 
have come to awaken discontent and excite insurrection 
among her Catholic subjects. The Spanish ambassador, 
Mendoza, being implicated in some of these schemes, was 
ordered to leave the kingdom. Finally a Catholic plot, 



1 The banished Bothwell made his home among the Orkneys, and became the 
leader of a band of pirates. Being pursued, he found shelter, for a while, among 
the Shetland Isles, whence he escaped to Denmark, where he died in a dungeon. 



ELIZABETH 1 63 

under the leadership of one Babington, to assassinate 
Elizabeth and proclaim Mary, was brought to light, impli- 
cating Mary herself. Elizabeth was now compelled to act 
in defense of her life and throne. Mary, tried by a com- 
mission of peers, in 1587, was found guilty and condemned 
to death, and the queen reluctantly signed the warrant 
for her execution. In the hall of Fotheringay Castle, her 
last prison house, this weary captive of nineteen long and 
dreary years, saddened by sorrow, but heroic still, calmly 
laid her head upon the block. 

Her brilliant qualities of mind and person, the calm 
dignity with which she bore misfortune, and her affecting 
death scene, have touched the chord of universal sympathy, 
and thrown a veil of charity over the frailties of her life 
and character. Both Council and Parliament considered 
Mary's death a state necessity. What would have been 
the result of her liberation we can only conjecture ; but 
her execution was closely followed by the most imminent 
peril that ever menaced the throne of Elizabeth, if not the 
liberties of England. Of the disposition of Mary herself, 
we have the clearest expression in a letter to Elizabeth, 
written during the last of her captivity, when longings for 
liberty had overcome all worldly ambitions. " Let me go," 
she wrote, " let me retire from this island to some solitude, 
where I may prepare my soul to die. Grant this, and I 
will sign away every right which either I or mine can 
claim." Elizabeth turned a deaf ear to this touching 
appeal, and Mary then bequeathed all her rights to the 
English throne to Philip of Spain (who was a descendant 
of John of Gaunt), — rights which Philip promptly claimed 
and began the most gigantic preparations to enforce. 



1 64 THE TUDORS 

The Maritime Growth of England. — It seems necessary 
at this point to notice briefly the maritime growth of Eng- 
land. Elizabeth's moderate and pacific policy, persistently 
followed for thirty years, had produced the happiest re- 
sults. The nation's advance in wealth and power had been 
rapid and healthful. Unexampled thrift characterized all 
its industries, while its commerce whitened every sea, 
pouring into London, then just becoming the great trade- 
mart of the civilized world, the wealth of every land and 
clime. 

The thirst for adventure and discovery had sent daring 
spirits into every nook and corner of the earth, whose 
glowing reports of the wonders they had seen stimulated 
fresh expeditions, and opened to English enterprise new 
avenues of trade. It had led Chancellor to penetrate the 
Arctic Ocean toward the east, and open a lucrative trade 
with Archangel. It had lured Davis and Frobisher into 
the same ocean toward the west, in search of a shorter 
passage to India. It had sent the famous Hawkins to the 
tropics, and opened an inexhaustible source of wealth in 
the ivory, gold dust, and slaves of Guinea. There was an 
extensive and growing trade with the ports of the North, 
Baltic, and Mediterranean seas. Every harbor on the 
coast had long sent out its fishing boats into the waters 
around, but now England began to rival France in the 
number of vessels sent to the cod fisheries of Newfound- 
land and the whale fisheries of the Polar seas. 

There was another cause for the maritime development of 
England. The persecution of the Huguenots of France and 
the patriot reformers in the Netherlands had awakened the 
sympathies of English Protestants. But the politic queen 



ELIZABETH 1 65 

coolly continued negotiations for marriage with a Catholic 
prince of France, even after the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew ; and she long looked with apparent indifference at 
the butcheries of Alva in the Netherlands. The English 
people finally took the matter into their own hands, and 
made war on their own account. They flocked to the 
Netherlands by thousands and joined the Protestant army. 
English "sea dogs," as they were called, commissioned as 
privateers by Conde of France and the Prince of Orange, 
or flying the French and Dutch flags without commissions, 
simply pirates, swarmed in all the waters frequented by 
French or Spanish traders. Aided by the English people 
all along the coast, and often by the royal officers them- 
selves, they constantly ran prizes into secret inlets and 
discharged their cargoes. Drake, the boldest spirit of 
them all, haunted the unguarded coasts of Spanish Amer- 
ica, burning towns and intercepting Spanish galleons 
bound to Cadiz, laden with gold, silver, and diamonds for 
the Spanish king. In such schools were the brave and 
hardy mariners of England trained for the hot work 
which Philip was soon to furnish them. 

Elizabeth's Defiance of Philip. — Affairs were fast com- 
ing to an issue between Elizabeth and Philip. The former 
had long been embittered by Philip's secret efforts to 
awaken discontent among her Catholic subjects; the latter 
was enraged at Elizabeth's duplicity in secretly aiding the 
Netherlanders and shielding English pirates who preyed 
on Spanish commerce, while professing peace with Spain. 
Toward the last, Elizabeth threw off the mask. Under 
the pressure of public sentiment after the assassination of 
the Prince of Orange, and conscious that the reformers 



1 66 THE TUDORS 

in the Netherlands, unaided, must soon fail, she sent an 
army of eight thousand men to their assistance. It was 
under the command of the Earl of Leicester, one of Eliza- 
beth's favorites, and accomplished little. The campaign 
is chiefly memorable for the death of one of its most 
accomplished officers, Sir Philip Sidney. He received a 
mortal wound at the siege of Zutphen. When about to 
drink a little water that had been procured with great 
difficulty, he saw a wounded soldier looking wistfully at it. 
"Take it," said the chivalric Sidney, who was himself 
burning with thirst, " thy necessities are greater than 
mine." 

When Drake returned from one of his expeditions, 
enriched with the gold and jewels taken from Spanish 
galleons, and Philip demanded the surrender of the 
"pirate," Elizabeth publicly conferred on the latter the 
honor of knighthood, and wore the captured jewels in 
her hair. The death of Mary, Queen of Scots, put an 
end to Philip's irresolution. 

The Invincible Armada. — Besides dethroning Elizabeth, 
it was Philip's aim to restore Catholicism to England. To 
this double purpose he now bent all his energies and 
turned the vast resources of the whole Spanish empire. 
For three years, ships and stores were slowly coming into 
the Tagus, and forming what Philip boastfully called the 
" Invincible Armada." The English rovers were all 
called home. Drake, with a fleet of thirty sail, hovered 
about the Spanish coast, picking up Spanish traders and 
attacking unguarded points. Boldly entering the harbor 
of Cadiz, he destroyed the ships and stores collected there, 
delaying the sailing of the Armada for many months. 



ELIZABETH 1 67 

The great fleet left the Tagus the last of May, 1588. 
Overtaken by a storm, it put into Corunna to refit. The 
last of July, its approach to the English coast, under the 
command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was signaled 
by blazing beacons on every hilltop. It swept slowly 
up the English Channel in the form of an extended 
crescent, seven miles from wing to wing. It was com- 
posed of one hundred and fifty ships, many of them of 
immense burden. On its rear closely hung the English 
fleet of eighty sail, under the command of Lord Howard. 
Drake had command of the " sea dogs," among whom 
were Hawkins and Frobisher. Many huge and unwieldy 
galleons of Spain were captured or sunk, one by one, by 
the lighter and more active craft of the English. Still the 
mighty fleet held steadily on its way and dropped anchor 
in the roads of Calais. The Duke of Parma had been in 
camp at Dunkirk with thirty thousand men, ready to land 
on the English coast as soon as the Armada should arrive 
to protect their passage across the channel. Howard saw 
the necessity of decisive action to prevent the crossing of 
Parma's troops. The next night eight English ships, filled 
with combustibles and set on fire, were towed toward the 
Spanish vessels, and sent, with tide and wind, into their 
very midst, as they lay crowded together at anchor. The 
affrighted Spaniards cut their cables and fled to the open 
sea, stretching away in a broken line along the coast. At 
break of day, the fearless " sea dogs," under the lead of 
Drake, fell upon the disordered line, and sank, captured, 
or forced on shore Spaniard after Spaniard, driving the 
still numerous but panic-stricken fleet northward. Medina 
no longer thought of the conquest of England, but of 



1 68 THE TUDORS 

safety for his broken and scattered fleet. Not daring to 
return through the English Channel in the face of Drake, 
he sought to make the circuit of Scotland and Ireland, and 
reach Spain by way of the Atlantic. Drake, having ex- 
hausted his ammunition, gave up the pursuit, and the flying 
Spaniards disappeared in the waters of the North Sea. 
Overtaken by fierce storms, and unaccustomed to the 
navigation of those dangerous seas, many unwieldy and 
disabled galleons were dashed upon the wild and rocky 
shores. The hapless crews escaped a watery grave, only 
to die at the hands of the inhabitants. Eight thousand of 
the very chivalry of Spain are said to have perished on the 
western coast of Ireland. Nearly a hundred ships and 
fourteen thousand men were missing when the shattered 
remains of the "Invincible Armada" once more dropped 
anchor in Spanish waters. 

The Spanish king received the news of the destruction 
of the Armada "with his usual constancy," saying, with 
unchanged countenance, " I sent it against man and not 
against the billows." The English, too, recognized the 
fact that the elements, perhaps more than English valor, 
had won for them the victory. On an old English medal 
commemorating the event, this inscription was written : — 

" Flavit Jehovah et dissipati sunt." 1 

England's supremacy on the high seas was now achieved. 
Philip, indeed, with the energy of despair, gathered another 
Armada, but this only brought Drake and the English 
" sea dogs " once more to the Spanish coast. Cadiz was 
taken and burned to the ground, and its ships and stores 

1 Jehovah blew and they were scattered. 



ELIZABETH 169 

were again destroyed. Drake once more became the 
scourge of Spanish America, taking treasure-laden gal- 
leons and destroying settlements ; but all sense of danger 
from Spain passed away from Elizabeth and her people. 

Great Names. — The impulse given to learning in the 
preceding reigns, favored by the long peace of the present, 
began to bear fruit. Men of genius appeared in every 
department of intellectual labor. Raleigh, Spenser, Hooker, 
Bacon, Sidney, and Shakespeare are among the most illus- 
trious names. There was a host of lesser lights. Though 
Elizabeth had the wisdom to be guided by great statesmen 
in public affairs, in private life she admitted to favor men 
of little ability and still less virtue. 

Death of Elizabeth. — The closing years of her life were 
made sad and gloomy by the execution, for treason, of the 
last of her favorites, the Earl of Essex. In this con- 
nection there is told a romantic tale. In a moment of 
tenderness, years before, Elizabeth had given Essex a 
ring, requesting him to send it to her if he ever needed 
her help. Now that the earl lay under sentence of death, 
she looked confidently day after day for the ring. But it 
never came ; the disappointed but resentful queen gave 
her signature to the fatal sentence ; and the unfortunate 
earl was soon beyond the reach of mortal aid. Not long 
after this, the Countess of Nottingham, when on her death- 
bed, called the queen to her side, and confessed to her that 
Essex had sent the ring, and that she, out of enmity to 
him, had withheld it. Elizabeth's resentment at what 
she had believed to be the earl's contempt for her favor 
changed to a paroxysm of rage and grief. Shaking the 
dying countess, who was praying for her pardon, Elizabeth 



I JO THE TUDORS 

cried, " God may forgive you, but I never can." She 
became a prey to melancholy that deepened with her fail- 
ing strength, until she died, like her sister, broken-hearted. 

On the night of her death she was asked to name her 
successor. At the mention of Lord Beauchamp, a member 
of the royal family, she said, with a touch of the old Tudor 
spirit, " I will have no rogue's son in my seat." James VI., 
King of Scotland, was named, but she was speechless and 
could only signify her assent. The next morning, March 
24, 1603, she died, and James became King of England, 
with the title of James I. 

Character of Elizabeth. — In character Elizabeth was a 
mass of contradictions. She had, in a marked degree, the 
iron will, imperious temper, and sound judgment of her 
father, the insincerity, vacillation, and vanity of her mother. 
She was often coarse in her manners, and sometimes pro- 
fane in her speech. Though arbitrary in her rule, like 
her father, she was never a tyrant like him, and she knew 
how to yield when the occasion required concession. Two 
years before her death she granted a large number of 
monopolies to favored persons. Seeing the dissatisfaction 
they had created, she sent a message to the House of 
Commons, announcing the reversal of all the grants. To a 
committee sent to express the gratitude of the House for 
the gracious act, she returned her thanks for reminding 
her of a mistake into which she had fallen through an 
error of judgment. From her supreme desire to win the 
love and promote the welfare of her subjects, despite her 
faults, she was known in her day, among the great mass 
of the English people, and has come down to us in history, 
as " Good Queen Bess." 



CHAPTER IX 
House of Stuart, 1603 to 1714 — n 1 Years 



james 1. 
charles i. 

commonwealth 

CHARLES II. 



JAMES II. 

WILLIAM and MARY 
ANNE 



JAMES I., 1603 TO 1625 — 22 YEARS 

Union of Scotch and English Crowns. — James I. was 
the representative of the royal families of both England 
and Scotland, and so united both their crowns. Although 
these countries now came under one king, their constitu- 
tional union, or union of Parliaments, did not take place 
till the reign of Queen Anne. • 

Persecution of Nonconformists. — The increasing severi- 
ties toward nonconformists in the latter part of Elizabeth's 
reign excited an intense anxiety in the public mind, to 
know what would be the policy of her successor. Before 
James reached London, he had been approached by 
both Catholics and Puritans, the former basing their 
hopes on his promise of toleration of Catholic worship, 
given to secure Catholic support, and the latter expecting 
much from his Puritan education. Both were doomed to 
disappointment. He avowed himself an Episcopalian ; 
and although at first tolerant, he began ere long to 
execute the laws against nonconformists with more rigor 
than Elizabeth had exercised. 

171 



172 HOUSE OF STUART 

In January, 1604, the king had called a convention 1 of 
Episcopa.1 and Puritan divines, to discuss the religious 
question. The hope that this convention would bring 
harmony among the clashing sects was not realized. 
King James, who had been the principal speaker in 
behalf of the established church, angry at the obstinacy 
of the Puritans, who failed to be convinced by his argu- 
ments, sought to convert them by a threat. " I will make 
them conform," said he, as the convention closed, " or I 
will harry them out of the land." The persecutions that 
followed forced multitudes to seek in foreign lands the 
safety and protection they could not have in their own. 

The Gunpowder Plot. — The discontent of some of the 
Catholics at the persecutions to which they were subjected, 
found expression in the " Gunpowder Plot," a scheme to 
blow up Parliament House when king, Lords, and Com- 
mons were assembled. The conspirators hired the base- 
ment of the building, ostensibly for business purposes, and 
concealed therein thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. A warn- 
ing sent to a Catholic lord, November 4, 1605, the day 
before the meeting of Parliament, led to an investigation. 
The powder was found under a pile of wood and fagots, 
and Guy Fawkes, the keeper of the cellar, was preparing 
slow matches for the explosion on the morrow. The con- 
spirators dispersed in every direction and sought places 
of concealment, but most of them were ferreted out and 
put to death. Although the Catholics as a body were 

1 This convention accomplished but one thing of importance, the issue, in 1611, 
of a new translation of the Bible, called " King James's Version," the one still used 
by most Protestants. The translation used by Roman Catholics is called " The 
Douay Bible," of which the New Testament was printed at Rheims in 1582, and 
the Old at Douay in 1609-10. 



JAMES I 173 

not responsible for this diabolical plot, it gave a death- 
blow to Catholic hopes of toleration. The laws against 
" Popish recusants " were made more severe and executed 
more rigorously than ever. They were required to take 
a new oath, renouncing the right of the Pope to excom- 
municate princes, or absolve subjects from their allegiance. 

The Pilgrim Fathers. — One little Puritan band, after 
a brief stay in Holland, took passage in the Mayflower and 
sought, across the broad Atlantic, a refuge in the wilder- 
ness of the New World, content to endure all possible 
hardships, that they might worship God as conscience di- 
rected them, and yet not sever entirely the ties that bound 
them to their native land. The " Pilgrim Fathers," as we 
are wont to call these first settlers in New England, landed 
at Plymouth, in the depth of winter, December 21, 1620. 

This was not the first permanent settlement made by 
the English on the continent. In 1606, three years after 
James's accession to power, two companies were chartered 
for the settlement of America. The London Company 
was to found a colony somewhere between the 34th and 
the 41st parallels of latitude, corresponding roughly with 
the mouths of the Cape Fear and Hudson rivers ; the 
Plymouth Company somewhere between the 38th and 
45th parallels, corresponding with the mouths of the 
Potomac and St. Croix. In 1607, under the auspices of 
the London Company, an expedition entered Chesapeake 
Bay and made a settlement at Jamestown on the James 
River, about fifty miles from its mouth. An attempt 
made by the Plymouth Company, the same year, to 
plant a colony near the mouth of the Kennebec was 
not successful. 



174 HOUSE OF STUART 

James's Assumption in Matters of Religion. — James was 
a man of one idea, and that the inherited and absolute 
rights of kings. But this doctrine of the " divine right 
of kings " was not only a favorite theory, ever on the 
royal lips, but also the keynote to the royal policy, both 
in church and in state. Parliament assembled in 1604. 
The House of Commons was largely Puritan, and its 
temper, in view of the absolutism set up by James, is 
clearly seen in its action. It petitioned for a redress of 
grievances in matters of religion. The king's decided 
rejection of this petition was met by the equally decided 
protest on the part of the House : " Let your majesty be 
pleased to receive public information from your Commons 
in Parliament, as well of the abuses in the church as in 
the civil state. Your majesty would be misinformed if 
any man should deliver that the kings of England have 
any absolute power in themselves, either to alter religion 
or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than 
as in temporal causes, by consent of Parliament." 

James's Assumption in Matters of Government. — James 
levied a tax on all exports and imports, and obtained a 
decision from the judges in favor of its legality. The 
House of Commons then petitioned for a redress of griev- 
ances in matters of state. His refusal to grant this 
petition brought another protest and prayer that a law be 
made to declare "that all impositions set upon your peo- 
ple, their goods, or merchandise, save only by common 
consent in Parliament, are and shall be void." Parliament 
was promptly dissolved, but the necessities of the king 
compelled its speedy reassembling. The questions divid- 
ing king and Parliament went to the people, and became 



JAMES I 175 

the issue in the election of new members. The new 
House of Commons was more decidedly opposed to the 
policy of the king than the old one. It made a redress 
of grievances, especially that of illegal imposts, the con- 
dition of a grant of supplies. Its angry dissolution dis- 
played the folly as well as obstinacy of the king. 

Seven years of absolute rule, seven years of relentless 
extortion, only served to widen the breach between king 
and people. Illegal imposts continued ; the odious " be- 
nevolences " were revived ; the equally odious system of 
" purveyance " * was practiced without regard to the law ; 
the sale of monopolies and the obsolete system of royal 
wardship, by which the incomes of the estates held under 
military tenure went to the king during the minority of 
the heir, were renewed ; patents of nobility were so freely 
sold that, at the death of James, one half the peers of 
England were those created by him. The shameless waste 
of the money thus obtained, on a corrupt court, excited 
the disgust as well as the indignation of the people. 

Personal favorites took the place of English statesmen, 
not only in the friendship of the king, but in stations 
of highest responsibility in the government. A mere 
adventurer, one George Villiers, became Duke of Buck- 
ingham and Minister of State. He was the Piers Gaves- 
ton of the infatuated king. Promotion to office, retention 
in office, and even access to the person of the king, on 

1 Purveyance was an ancient prerogative of the crown, by which the king had 
the preference over all others in the purchase of supplies. He could take them at 
an appraised value, even without the owner's consent. The royal officers often 
practiced great injustice, purveyance becoming under some of the kings a system 
of royal robbery. An attempt was made to regulate it in Magna Charta, and by 
repeated enactments in succeeding reigns. It was finally surrendered by Charles II. 
for a compensation. 



176 HOUSE OF STUART 

the part of men of the highest rank, depended on the pleas- 
ure or the bribery of this handsome but corrupt official. 

Foreign Affairs. — The foreign policy of James was 
almost as displeasing to the English people as his man- 
agement of domestic affairs. Just as the life and death 
struggle between Catholics and Protestants was breaking 
out in Germany, warmly enlisting the sympathies of 
Protestant England in behalf of the latter, James was 
obsequiously courting the favor of Spain, and seeking 
to bring about a marriage between Prince Charles and 
the Spanish Infanta. The cry for another Parliament, 
coming from every quarter of the kingdom, forced the 
king to issue writs for an election. 

The Parliament of 1621. — The Parliament of 1621 is 
almost as famous as that of 1640, for the boldness with 
which it opposed the assumptions of the king. It 
demanded a war with Spain instead of a treaty of alli- 
ance, and a Protestant instead of a Catholic marriage for 
the Prince of Wales. " Bring stools for the ambassadors," 
was the ironical command of the king, as the committee 
sent by the House of Commons to communicate their 
demands was announced. He forbade further discussion 
by the Commons on affairs of state, asserting that all 
their rights were derived from himself and his ancestors. 
" Let us pray, and then consider of this great business," 
said a member of the Commons, as the king's commands 
were repeated by the committee. The resolution that 
followed, affirming freedom of speech as their ancient 
right, has the ring of the times of Henry III., when an 
armed baronage boldly confronted the tyrant at West- 
minster. The clanking of swords was then hardly more 



JAMES I 177 

startling to the ears of Henry than the utterances of the 
Commons to James. With a purpose as aimless as it was 
impotent, he sent for the journals of the House, and with 
his own hand tore out the leaves containing the obnoxious 
resolution. James might indeed destroy the Parliament 
records ; but the spirit of liberty, enkindled anew in the 
hearts of the patriot Commons, he could not extinguish. 
The sudden dissolution of Parliament ended the conflict 
for the time being. 

Prince Charles. — Prince Charles, accompanied by Buck- 
ingham, visited Spain to complete the marriage contract 
with the Spanish Infanta. Mutual disgust broke off all 
negotiations, and Charles returned to England and took 
sides with the people in demanding war. James, disap- 
pointed in his hopes of a Spanish alliance, was borne 
along by the popular current into another war with Spain. 
A new marriage was arranged for Charles with Henrietta 
Maria, a princess of France. James died before the con- 
summation of the marriage contract. 

Sir Walter Raleigh. — The name of Sir Walter Raleigh 
had long been known in connection with public affairs. 
He began his public career in the reign of Elizabeth and 
was prominent as a courtier, statesman, and commander. 
Under the patronage of Elizabeth, he sent several expedi- 
tions to make settlements in the New World. His first 
colonists at Roanoke Island were ill-fitted for the hard- 
ships and privations of a new country, and took advantage 
of a chance visit of Drake, who was returning from one of 
his raids on Spanish America, to abandon their settlement. 
His second colony, when revisited after the expiration of 
three years, was found to have disappeared, leaving no 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 12 



178 HOUSE OF STUART 

trace behind. Early in the reign of James, Raleigh, being 
implicated (though on very slight testimony) in a conspir- 
acy to overthrow the government and place Arabella 
Stuart, the king's cousin, on the throne, was sent to the 
Tower under sentence of death. After twelve years of 
confinement, during which he occupied the dreary hours 
of prison life in writing a " History of the World," he was 
released on a promise to guide an expedition to a gold mine 
in Guiana. But the Spaniards, notified (some say by 
James himself) of the purpose of the expedition, made 
every preparation to defeat it. Raleigh, broken in spirit 
and fortune, returned to England, only to reenter the 
Tower and perish on the scaffold. 

Character of James I. — James was plain in person, 
awkward in manners, and intemperate even to drunken- 
ness in his habits ; but he had good natural ability and 
considerable learning, of which he was excessively vain. 
His pedantic display of his learning led Henry IV. of 
France to characterize him as the " wisest fool in Christen- 
dom." The public contempt for his meanness was sur- 
passed only by the public resentment at his usurpations. 
He was at once the most puerile and most presumptuous 
of English kings. As an index of the prevalent feeling 
toward this king, it is said that his peculiarities, both 
of person and of character, were publicly caricatured in 
the theaters of London, to the infinite enjoyment of the 
people. 

CHARLES I., 1625 TO 1649 — 24 YEARS 

Constitutional Liberty at the Accession of Charles I. — 
From the Wars of the Roses to the reign of James I., we 



CHARLES I 179 

hear little of constitutional liberty in England. As we are 
now standing at the very threshold of a renewal of the 
constitutional struggle, a brief retrospect will make more 
intelligible the course of events upon which we are about 
to enter. 

Mediaeval civilization rested on the feudal system, and 
fell with it, and both went down with the nobility in the 
Wars of the Roses. These wars reduced England to a 
state bordering on anarchy, and the only power that did 
save it, or that could save it, from utter anarchy was a 
stable throne. To this all parties turned with the instinct 
of self-preservation. 

The nobility, landowners, and moneyed classes, remem- 
bering the leveling doctrines of the socialists, looked to 
the throne to protect them from another peasant revolt. 

The church, too, conscious of the silent but vigorous 
growth of communistic, as well as reform, ideas, saw in a 
stable throne the strongest bulwark of social and civil 
order, as well as of the Catholic religion. And the people, 
having endured, during the Wars of the Roses, the evils of 
a disputed succession, were ready to welcome any line 
of kings strong enough to save them from the horrors 
of another civil war. 

The House of Commons, that ancient hope of the 
nation, by a sweeping restriction of the elective franchise, 
and by wholesale corruption in the election of members, 
had sunk into a mere appendage of the crown, and under 
some of the kings, into the great instrument of its oppres- 
sions. 

Without marked violence or special opposition, the 
king deliberately gathered into his single hand all the 



180 HOUSE OF STUART 

powers of church and state. That he should become 
arbitrary was natural ; that he should grow despotic was 
not strange. Between the reigns of Edward IV. and 
Charles I., the government of England ranged through 
all shades and degrees of absolutism. 

But even in the midst of absolute rule, silent forces were 
at work weakening its foundations and destined, in the 
fullness of time, to accomplish its complete overthrow. 
The diffusion of knowledge and the elevation of the 
masses had been rapid and general, especially after the 
invention of the printing press. There was noiselessly 
growing up an enlightened public sentiment on the rela- 
tion of sovereign to subject that was far in advance of the 
theory and practice of the government. Faith in the doc- 
trine of the "divine right of kings" became weak, as 
convictions of the sacredness of human rights grew 
strong. 

During the reign of James I. it was evident that a 
collision between king and people was at hand. At the 
death of James, there was a lull in the gathering storm 
that was soon to break over the head of his son and suc- 
cessor. It will ever be a matter of wonder that Charles I. 
could so completely shut his eyes to the signs of the times, 
that he should take no warning from his father's mistakes, 
but should blindly and obstinately pursue his father's 
insane policy. 

Renewal of the Constitutional Struggle. —The struggle 
was clearly defined. It was constitutional liberty against 
the royal prerogative, an oppressed people against a tyran- 
nical king. The English people, whom the crown alone 
could rescue from the robber barons in the reign of 



CHARLES I l8l 

Henry II., whom the patriot barons alone could shield 
from the tyranny of the crown in Henry III., this great 
English people had at last outgrown dependence on king 
and baron and proved in the end more than a match for 
them both. 

Public feeling in England ran high against Catholicism 
at the time of James's death. The " Thirty Years' War " 
in Germany, beginning in a contest between the Elector 
Palatine of the Rhine and Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, 
for the Bohemian crown, had widened into a life and death 
struggle between Catholics and Protestants. Besides the 
sympathy English Protestants felt for their brethren in 
Germany, they were naturally interested in behalf of the 
Elector, who was son-in-law to King James. Spain had 
openly taken sides with the Emperor, and England had 
entered the lists against Spain, besides sending a small 
army to the help of the Elector. But the war with Spain 
lagged through the indifference of the government led by 
Buckingham, the chief minister of state. King Charles 
demanded a subsidy ; but Parliament, suspicious of his 
intentions, and watchful of the liberties of England, limited 
the usual grant of certain life customs to a year. Resent- 
ing the limitation, Charles refused to accept the vote and 
levied the customs on his own authority. Parliament then 
proceeded to discuss the public grievances, and was dis- 
solved. A fruitless expedition against Cadiz, under Buck- 
ingham, leaving the king deeply in debt, made necessary 
another Parliament in 1626. Instead of relieving the king's 
necessities, the House of Commons, guided by that daunt- 
less patriot, Sir John Eliot, proceeded to impeach the 
officers of the crown. Charges of corruption against 



1 82 HOUSE OF STUART 

Buckingham were carried in the House. Eliot, in a speech 
full of scathing invective, then arraigned the royal favorite 
before the House of Lords, and was sent by the angry 
king to the Tower. The refusal of the Commons to act 
on public affairs caused Eliot's release, but their request 
for the dismission of Buckingham brought another disso- 
lution. Then followed more illegal taxation in the form 
of " benevolences " and "forced loans." Although many 
of the clergy preached the doctrine of passive obedience, 
men everywhere refused to give or lend to the king. Poor 
and friendless offenders were pressed into the army or 
navy ; the rich and noble were thrown into prison or sum- 
moned before the Council. 

Buckingham now had an opportunity to retrieve his fall- 
ing fortunes. During the first year of the reign, Charles 
had married Henrietta Maria, the French princess. The 
marriage stipulation with reference to the toleration of 
Catholics having been broken by the king, Richelieu 
and Olivarez, the able ministers of France and Spain, 
planned a joint invasion of England. Buckingham sought 
to checkmate this scheme of invasion by an attack on 
France. He sailed with a large fleet to the relief of 
Rochelle, the stronghold of the Huguenots, which was 
besieged by French Catholics. Another disaster, more 
shameful than that at Cadiz, left the king still deeper 
in debt, and compelled the issue of writs for another 
Parliament. 

Petition of Right, A.D. 1628. — The people, now thor- 
oughly aroused, returned a House more hostile to the 
king than the former one. Like that, it demanded redress 
before granting money. It proceeded to array its griev- 



CHARLES I 183 

ances and frame its demands into that second great 
charter of liberties, the " Petition of Right." This petition 
forbade forced loans, benevolences, and every species of 
illegal taxation, imprisonment, and punishment ; forbade 
martial law and the billeting of soldiers upon the people 
in time of peace, and imposed obedience to the laws on the 
ministers of the crown. The refusal of the king to sign 
this petition was followed by a " Remonstrance on the 
State of the Kingdom." At the mention of Bucking- 
ham's name, against whom the Remonstrance was aimed, 
the speaker forbade further discussion, saying that he 
held a royal order to allow no member to speak against 
the ministers of the crown. The effect of this direct 
interference with free speech, one of the most unques- 
tioned privileges of Parliament, beggars description. 
Eliot, who was addressing the House, sank stunned into 
his seat. There were a few moments of deathlike silence, 
followed by sounds of suppressed excitement, and then 
exclamations of amazement, grief, anger, broke here and 
there from the seething assembly. Some wept and some 
prayed. Members rose to speak but sat down over- 
powered with emotion. The venerable Sir Edward Coke 
at last took the floor, and in scathing language denounced 
Buckingham as the author of all the perils that menaced 
the liberties of England. Charles, alarmed at the dangers 
that threatened his favorite, sought to quell the storm by 
giving his signature to the Petition of Right. But it was 
too late. The House, bent on the destruction of Bucking- 
ham, pressed its Remonstrance and was hastily prorogued. 
But Buckingham soon ceased to be an object of anxiety 
to either the king or his Commons. While preparing to 



1 84 HOUSE OF STUART 

take charge of another expedition against France, he was 
killed at Portsmouth by one Felton, but whether for 
public or private ends is not clear. Felton had been 
discharged from the public service. 

The King can do no Wrong. — An explanation ought to 
be made of the persistency with which the House of Com- 
mons pursued Buckingham even after the king had as- 
sumed the responsibility of all the offenses charged 
against him. It was then, as it is now, a settled principle 
of the English monarchy that "the king can do no wrong." 
In case of wrongdoing by the government, the king's 
ministers are held responsible, and, aside from the re- 
moval or punishment of these, there is no way to coerce 
or punish the king himself except by revolution. 

The Purpose of Charles to rule Alone. — At its next 
session, in 1629, the House summoned the collectors of 
the illegal taxes to its bar. They appeared but refused 
to answer, pleading the commands of the king. The 
speaker, being about to adjourn the House in obedience 
to a royal order, was held down in his chair and the doors 
were kept locked against the messenger of the king, until 
the resolutions offered by Eliot were passed. These 
resolutions denounced "as a capital enemy of the kingdom 
any minister who should seek to change the established 
religion or advise the levying of taxes without consent 
of Parliament." The House then unlocked its doors and 
suffered the dissolution awaiting it. 

Ringing bells and blazing bonfires had signified the 
public joy when the king signed the Petition of Right, 
for it was then thought there would be an end of royal 
oppression ; but joy was changed to sorrow when the king, 



CHARLES I 185 

on the occasion of the last dissolution, announced that 
there would be no more Parliaments, that henceforth he 
should rule alone. Eleven years of personal government, 
during which Parliament was not once assembled, prove 
the earnestness of the royal threat, and form one of the 
gloomiest periods in the history of England. Nine of the 
more prominent opponents of the king were thrown into 
the Tower, one of them, the heroic Eliot, to die within its 
walls. 

Laud, Strafford, and the Two Courts. — There were two 
ministers upon whom Charles chiefly relied to carry out 
his policy of absolute rule, William Laud, who had been 
placed at the head of the church, and Thomas Wentworth, 
made Lord Strafford, once a bitter opponent, but now 
a devoted supporter of the king. There were two courts 
that were the chief instruments of the royal tyranny, the 
High Commission and Star Chamber, the former having 
jurisdiction over offenses against the church, and the 
latter over those against the king. Besides these there 
was the "Council of the North," having almost absolute 
authority in the northern countries. 

The High Commission and Puritan Emigration. — Though 
not himself an avowed Catholic, Laud sought to make 
the Church of England Catholic in its spirit and practice. 
Through the court of the High Commission he waged 
a pitiless warfare against Puritanism. Its ministers were 
everywhere driven from their livings, and its laymen were 
subjected to tortures that rivaled those of the most bar- 
barous ages. Patents were secured and companies organ- 
ized for the settlement of New England. Eyes that 
looked longingly toward the distant refuge of the Pil- 



1 86 HOUSE OF STUART 

grims yet filled with tears, as the Puritans, turning their 
backs upon scenes that were dear to them, wended their 
way with unwilling feet to the place of embarkation. 
Hearts that swelled with grief as the shores of " dear old 
England " faded away from sight, yet rose to a lofty pur- 
pose and a sublime resignation, as the Puritans laid home 
and country on the altar of their religious faith. They 
counted the peril, poverty, and hardship of their New 
England homes as naught beside the boon they sought 
and found, — " Freedom to worship God." 

The Puritan exodus, once begun, continued until the New 
England coast was dotted with settlements. A colony 
numbering eight hundred souls, under John Winthrop, 
entered Massachusetts Bay, in 1630, and founded Boston. 
In 1634 Lord Baltimore secured a patent of the territory 
now known as Maryland. This colony, originally founded 
as an asylum for persecuted Catholics, had a most liberal 
charter granting perfect religious freedom to all sects. 
In 1635 Lord Say-and-Seal and Lord Brooke obtained a 
charter for the settlement of the territory now embraced 
in the state of Connecticut. Several colonies were estab- 
lished there within a few years. During the interval 
between the dissolution of the Parliament of 1629 and the 
assembling of that of 1640, twenty thousand Puritans had 
found homes in the New World. It is said that even 
Hampden and Cromwell once embarked for America, but 
were stopped by a royal order. The former had purchased 
a tract of land on Narragansett Bay. 

The Star Chamber and Illegal Taxation. — But while the 
High Commission was doing its wicked work in the name 
of religion, the Star Chamber was crushing out every 



CHARLES I 187 

vestige of civil liberty. Its officers surpassed even the 
lawyers of Henry VII. in the ingenuity with which they 
entrapped and mulcted the people. Laws and customs 
which had passed away with the feudal times in which 
they originated, but which had never been formally 
repealed, were brought to light and all offenders were 
fined. Knighthood was forced on the gentry unless com- 
muted with money. The forest laws were rigidly executed 
and poachers were heavily fined. 

James had attempted to check the growth of London 
by a royal order defining its corporate limits. Every 
house since erected beyond the specified line was ordered 
-by Charles to be torn down unless its owner paid into the 
royal treasury a sum equal to three years' rent. Hun- 
dreds of the poor were made houseless by the relentless 
execution of this order. Monopolies prevailed more exten- 
sively than under Elizabeth or James, raising the neces- 
saries of life to an exorbitant price. 

Ship Money and John Hampden. — But the climax to the 
national endurance was reached when the king ordered 
the levy of a tax called ship money. From the earliest 
times this had been a war tax levied on the maritime 
counties for the protection of the coast. Charles ordered 
the levy of ship money on all the people, inland as well 
as maritime, for general purposes, and in a time of 
peace. Eliot, the early champion of English liberty, was 
dead, but a worthy successor appeared in the person of 
John Hampden, a farmer of moderate means in the shire 
of Buckingham. Refusing to pay the tax assessed against 
him, he carried his case to the courts. Though defeated 
through royal influence, Hampden gained a great moral 



I 88 HOUSE OF STUART 

victory, for the injustice of the king was made apparent 
to all the nation, and the public mind was educated to 
resistance. 

The Attempt to force Episcopacy upon the Scots. — The 
king had attempted to force Episcopacy upon the people 
of Scotland. A royal order enjoined the use of the 
liturgy in all the Scotch churches. But those sturdy 
Presbyterians had imbibed the spirit as well as the faith 
of John Knox. A National Covenant, industriously circu- 
lated, received the signatures of nine tenths of the Scotch 
people. The closing paragraph shows both the tenor of 
the Covenant, and the temper of the people. 

" We promise and swear, by the name of the Lord our 
God, to continue in the profession and obedience of the 
said religion, and that we shall defend the same, and resist 
all the contrary errors and corruptions, according to our 
vocation and the utmost of that power which God has put 
into our hands, all the days of our life." 

Charles at once hurried northward with all the troops at 
his command, to enforce obedience. But the Scots quickly 
marshaled their clans under Leslie, a pupil of the great 
Gustavus, and, without waiting for the attack of their king, 
pushed boldly across the border and offered battle. The 
astonished king feigned concession, and retired to await 
the levy of a larger force. 

The Short Parliament. — The crisis demanded the action 
of Parliament, and the king was forced to issue the usual 
writs for an election. The records of preceding Parlia- 
ments would answer for this. Instead of voting men and 
money for a Scotch war, it demanded redress, and, after 
a stormy session of three weeks, was angrily dissolved. 



CHARLES I 189 

"Things must go worse before they go better," said St. 
John, one of its members. They speedily went worse. 

A Great Council of Peers, assembled at York as a last 
expedient, accomplished nothing but delay. The advan- 
cing Scots had reached Newcastle and were on the march 
for York. Laud was mobbed in London, and the High 
Commission was broken up at St. Paul's. All England 
was brought to the verge of revolt, when Charles once 
more, and for the last time, issued his summons for a 
meeting of Parliament. 

The Long Parliament. — Parliament assembled on the 
3d of November, 1640. Having enacted that its dissolu- 
tion could take place only by its own consent, it continued, 
with expulsions and intermissions, through a period of 
twenty years, and is known in history as the Long Parlia- 
ment. All the accumulated grievances of the people since 
the advent of the Stuarts were poured- into the House of 
Commons, in the shape of complaints and petitions, requir- 
ing the labors of forty committees for their examination. 
Then began the sharp work of reform. Patriots were 
released from prison ; the Star Chamber and High Com- 
mission abolished ; the judgment against Hampden an- 
nulled ; ship money and arbitrary taxation once more 
forbidden ; and royal officers impeached. Laud and 
Strafford, the two able but servile agents of the king, 
were thrown into the Tower, whence they came only to 
lay their heads upon the block. 

The Attempt of Charles to arrest the Five Members. — 
The king looked bitterly but helplessly on, while the 
absolutism in which he had sought to intrench himself 
was roughly swept away. Conscious that his throne was 



190 HOUSE OF STUART 

crumbling beneath him, he attempted by one master- 
stroke to crush out all opposition and reestablish his lost 
authority. His blow was aimed directly at the House of 
Commons. With a company of soldiers at his back, he 
appeared at the door of the Commons Chamber, and 
demanded the surrender of five of its members on a 
charge of high treason. Pym and Hampden were of the 
number. " I see my birds have flown," said the king, 
after looking carefully over the silent assembly. With 
the demand that they should send the accused members 
to him, and a threat to secure them for himself if they did 
not, the baffled king abruptly left the chamber. 

Civil War Inevitable. — The crisis had come. The occa- 
sion was too solemn for business, and the House adjourned. 
The next day a" royal proclamation branded the five mem- 
bers as traitors and ordered their arrest. London rose as 
one man for their defense. Its trainbands held the city 
and guarded the House of Commons. They escorted the 
historical five back to their seats amidst the shouts of the 
excited people. Both parties began to prepare for the war 
that was now inevitable. The king raised his standard at 
Nottingham, August 22, 1642. Parliament ordered the 
enrollment and muster of the militia. 

Roundheads and Cavaliers. — The great English people, 
farmers, traders, and artisans, mostly Puritans, with a 
sprinkling of peers, rallied around Parliament, and were 
called Roundheads, from the Puritan practice of wearing 
closely-cut hair. A majority of the nobles, gentry, and 
clergy, took sides with the king, and from their gallant 
bearing were called Cavaliers. 

The two great parties into which England resolved itself, 



CHARLES 1 191 

the one democratic and the other aristocratic, the one aim- 
ing at progress and reform, and the other clinging to the 
traditions of the past, have continued to this day, under 
the names of Whig and Tory, Liberal and Conservative, 
to struggle for the mastery. 

Presbyterianism made the National Religion. — Parlia- 
ment secured the aid of the Scots, by signing the Cove- 
nant and adopting the Presbyterian as the national religion. 
As an offset Charles sought help from the Irish. In 1633 
Strafford had been sent to Ireland, and for seven years 
had maintained in that country the iron despotism Charles 
struggled in vain to establish in England. After Straf- 
ford's execution in 1641, and as a result of his severity, 
there broke out a widespread revolt of the Catholic Irish 
against the Protestant English. It was located chiefly in 
Ulster, that had been settled, thirty years before, in the 
reign of James I., by colonies of English Protestants. Dur- 
ing its continuance, according to Clarendon, not less than 
forty thousand people of English birth were slain. With 
this fresh in the public mind, the purpose of King Charles 
to bring an Irish army into England caused great excite- 
ment, even among his own adherents. Officers of all 
grades and in considerable numbers threw up their com- 
missions, or went over to the other side. 

Edgehill, A.D. 1642. — The first conflict, at Edgehill, 
was favorable to the king. Successive disasters in various 
quarters darkened the prospects of the Parliamentarians. 
Not the least among these was the death, in a skirmish, 
of the statesman-soldier Hampden. The great want of the 
Parliamentary army was cavalry. It was strength in this 
arm that gave the king the advantage during the earlier 



192 HOUSE OF STUART 

stages of the war. A sturdy Puritan from the shire of 
Huntingdon, whose military genius we are soon to recog- 
nize, seeing the want, raised a regiment of horse, composed 
of men of like stamp with himself, and brought it into the 
field against the king. This man was Oliver Cromwell. 

Naseby, A.D. 1645. — I n the battles of Marston Moor 
and Naseby, Cromwell, at the head of his invincible " Iron- 
sides," scattered like chaff the horsemen of Prince Rupert, 
and then, charging the close ranks of royal infantry, put 
them to utter rout. The king, conscious after the battle 
of Naseby that all was lost, rode into a camp of the Scots 
on the river Trent, and surrendered himself to Lord Leven, 
its commander. 

Struggle between Presbyterians and Independents. — The 
Puritans of England were divided into two principal sects, 
Independents and Presbyterians. The former held that 
each individual church with its pastor should regulate its 
own affairs, independent of all others. The latter accepted 
the higher and ultimate authority of presbyteries and 
synods. The Independents were identical with the Sepa- 
ratists of the reign of James I., of whom the refugees 
at Leyden and the Pilgrim Fathers formed important 
bodies. But their original idea of church independence 
widened toward the close of the war into that of the com- 
plete separation of church and state. The Presbyterian 
majority in Parliament proceeded to reorganize the Church 
of England on the Presbyterian plan. 

The perils that environed civil liberty passed away with 
the surrender of the king to Lord Leven, but the religious 
intolerance which remained, and to which the Puritan 
majority still clung, became almost as dangerous to the 



CHARLES I 193 

state as the absolutism they had abolished. They had 
removed the civil, only to impose the religious, yoke upon 
the necks of their brethren. 

Each party sought reconciliation and alliance with the 
king, as a means of success for itself ; the Independents 
on the basis of religious toleration, the Presbyterians on 
the adoption of the Covenant. Charles rejected the offers 
of both parties, expecting to bring the one or the other to 
his own terms. " I am not without hope," wrote he, "that 
I shall be able to draw either the Presbyterians or the In- 
dependents to side with me for extirpating one another, so 
that I shall be really king again." " What will become of 
us," asked a Presbyterian, " now that the king has rejected 
our proposals?" "What would have become of us," re- 
plied an Independent, "had he accepted them?" Parlia- 
ment bargained with the Scots for the possession of 
Charles's person, paying .£400,000, the amount due them. 

Struggle between Parliament and the Army. — The Pres- 
byterians, now believing their victory assured, took a more 
decided stand. They established presbyteries throughout 
the country, and voted to disband the old army, which was 
Independent, and organize a new one with Presbyterians 
at the head. The quarrel between the religious sects in 
Parliament now changed to a struggle between Parliament 
and the army, ending, as we shall soon see, in the defeat 
of the former, and the establishment and continuance of 
military rule for a period of nearly twelve years. The 
army refused to disband without an assurance of religious 
toleration. A body of its troopers surrounded the Holmby 
House, in which the king was detained, and took him into 
custody. Parliament charged Cromwell with inciting the 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 13 



194 HOUSE OF STUART 

act. While denying the charge, he put himself at the head 
of his old soldiers and was soon on the road to London. 
Royal intrigue and treachery toward both parties, — the 
flight of the king to the Isle of Wight, his unsuccessful 
effort to reach the continent, and his detention in Caris- 
brook Castle, — a treaty with the Presbyterians, the prin- 
cipal terms of which were the assent of the king to 
the Covenant and his reinstatement on the throne, — the 
mustering of the Cavaliers in various quarters, and the 
passage of the border by an army of Scots, to cooperate 
with the Royalists, — were events that occurred in rapid 
succession. 

The Army becomes Supreme. — At the head of an army 
only too willing to follow where Cromwell led, with amaz- 
ing rapidity he scattered the Cavaliers mustering in the 
west, and then, turning northward, crushed the Scots at 
a blow and entered Edinburgh. Fresh concessions on the 
part of King Charles had given him an overwhelming 
majority in Parliament, and he was again seized by a body 
of troopers, and hurried away to Castle Hurst. A few 
weeks found Cromwell again in London. Surrounding 
the Parliament building with his soldiers, he excluded all 
the Presbyterian members. The Independents remaining 
were called the " Rump Parliament." They assumed, as 
representatives of the people, the supreme power of the 
state and proceeded to the most radical legislation. 

The High Court of Justice. — They organized a "High 
Court of Justice," composed of seventy principal officers 
and members, for the trial of Charles Stuart on a charge 
of high treason. This court met at Westminster on the 
20th of January, 1649. Charles denied its legality and 



THE COMMONWEALTH 1 95 

refused to plead. On the 27th, he was adjudged guilty 
and condemned to death. The death warrant was signed 
on the 29th, and on the 30th the unfortunate king was 
beheaded in front of Whitehall. The scaffold on which 
he suffered was covered with black and surrounded with 
soldiers. As the masked executioner, raising the head of 
the king streaming with blood, cried aloud, "This is the 
head of a traitor," a deep but audible groan burst from 
the assembled people, who fled horror-stricken from the 
awful scene. The people of England had never before 
witnessed the execution of their king, and Charles had 
borne himself, during the course of the trial, with such 
kingly dignity, and, after the fatal sentence, with such 
patience and resignation as to win their reverence and 
sympathy. The anniversary of his death was observed 
with religious services, as the " Day of King Charles the 
Martyr," from the restoration in 1660 to the year 1859. 

Three of Charles's children deserve notice ; Charles, 
Prince of Wales ; James, Duke of York ; and Mary. The 
two sons became kings of England in turn. Mary married 
William, Prince of Nassau, and her son William became 
king after James. 

THE COMMONWEALTH, 1649 TO 1660 — 11 YEARS 

The Commonwealth and its Perils. — In less than a 
month after the execution of the king, the monarchy was 
formally abolished and a republic, known as the Common- 
wealth, was erected in its stead. The House of Lords 
shared the fate of the throne, and the Rump Commons 
were left the sole and supreme authority. They created a 



196 THE COMMONWEALTH 

Council of State, composed of forty-one of their own 
members, as the executive branch of the government. 
Perils early thickened around the young republic. The 
violent death of the king at the hands of his subjects 
caused an intense excitement among the monarchs of 
Europe. The ministers of England were driven from 
some of the capitals and murdered in others. Holland 
made haste to recognize Prince Charles, then a refugee at 
the Hague, as King of England. 

The proud Cavaliers, though beaten into silence, looked 
with deadly hatred, as well as unspeakable disgust, upon 
the Puritan republic, and they only waited for a favorable 
turn of events to attempt the restoration of the monarchy. 
But the first movements of a Royalist outbreak were 
crushed by the iron hand of Cromwell. A most danger- 
ous spirit had crept into the army, which, if unchecked, 
would have led to the wildest excesses. The soldiers be- 
gan to rise in mutiny against their officers. Mingled sever- 
ity and mercy, promptly applied by the same vigorous 
hand, cured the discontent that was demoralizing the army. 

The Royalists in Ireland raised the standard of the 
Stuarts and speedily took every town but Dublin. Crom- 
well was dispatched with twelve thousand troops to reduce 
them to order. His campaign was short but terrible. He 
began with the capture of Drogheda and the merciless 
slaughter of its garrison of three thousand men. Town 
after town opened its gates, in panic, at his command, or 
quickly fell before his assaults. The memory of Ulster 
nerved every arm and steeled every heart in that dread 
army, for the work of vengeance. Not a man taken with 
arms in his hands was spared. 



THE COMMONWEALTH 197 

The proclamation of Prince Charles in Scotland, and 
the levy of an army for the invasion of England, called 
Cromwell back to London. With fifteen thousand men 
he pushed rapidly across the border, and, in a battle of an 
hour, annihilated the Scotch army at Dunbar and cleared 
his way to Edinburgh. The next year another army of 
Scots, under Charles himself, finding the way open, pushed 
rapidly southward toward London. 

Worcester, A.D. 1 65 1. — By forced marches, Cromwell 
placed his army directly in the path of Charles at Worces- 
ter. Cromwell characterized this battle as his " crowning 
mercy." Scarcely a Scot escaped. Charles saved himself 
by flight ; but left almost alone in the heart of England, 
with Cromwell's troopers occupying every road and scour- 
ing the country in search of the fugitive, his situation was 
perilous in the extreme. Threading his way, in one dis- 
guise and another, through innumerable dangers, hiding 
by day and journeying by night, in two months he safely 
reached the southern coast and took passage on a collier 
for France. 

Parliament and the Army. — Whatever may be said in 
defense of the extreme course of the Independents, both 
in Parliament and in the army, on the score of self-preser- 
vation, the Rump was but the fragment of a Parliament, 
and its long continuance was felt by all parties to be 
impolitic. Charges of greed and corruption against its 
members in appropriating the public spoils increased the 
odium attached to its name. Hateful from the outset to 
all denominations but its own, it was fast becoming hateful 
to that. Cromwell, impatient at the selfishness and uncer- 
tainty that characterized its action, urged a prompt "settle- 



198 THE COMMONWEALTH 

ment of the nation," and an early dissolution. Parliament, 
in retaliation, resolved to disband the army. Failing in 
that, it sought to eclipse the splendor of its fame, by still 
more splendid achievements on the sea. The Dutch and 
English nations were maritime rivals, and their mutual 
jealousy was ready to break into open hostility on the 
slightest provocation. A statute, called the " Navigation 
Act," requiring all nations trading with England to send 
their products to English ports in their own or English 
vessels, was aimed at the Dutch, then the common carriers 
of Europe. The English required the ships of other 
nations to lower their flags in British waters. An English 
fleet under Blake met a Dutch fleet under Van Tromp in 
the Downs. Blake's signal of three guns for the custom- 
ary salute to the English flag was answered by Van 
Tromp with a broadside. The fight that followed led to 
a declaration of war with Holland. The first conflict sent 
the Dutch under De Ruyter into port to refit ; the second 
forced the English, under Blake, to seek the shelter of the 
Thames, while Van Tromp exultingly swept the English 
Channel with a broom at his masthead; the third seriously 
crippled Van Tromp, and, for a time, gave Blake undis- 
puted possession of the sea. Before this last victory of the 
English fleet, there was an understanding that Parliament 
should soon dissolve and that the army should disband ; 
after it, the former evinced a disposition not to dissolve at all. 
The Expulsion of the Rump Parliament. — In 1653 a 
plan was made to call a new Parliament, in which all the 
members of the old Parliament should continue to hold 
seats, and also act as judges of the election of new mem- 
bers. Cromwell, who was a member of Parliament, was 



OLIVER CROMWELL 199 

opposed to this scheme. A mutual council at Whitehall 
adjourned for one day, with the understanding that no 
action should be taken in the meantime. At the time 
appointed for the second meeting but few of the friends 
and none of the authors of the measure were present. A 
messenger soon arrived at Whitehall with the announce- 
ment that the bill was under discussion in Parliament and 
about to pass. Cromwell's hesitation vanished. Taking 
a file of soldiers and posting them in the lobby of the 
Parliament Chamber, he entered and took his accustomed 
seat. As he listened to the arguments of Vane, who was 
speaking in behalf of the bill, he said to one who sat by 
his side, " I am come to do what grieves me to the heart." 
But he continued to listen. "The time has come," said 
he, at length, to another. " Think well, it is dangerous 
work," was the reply. Still he waited, but, just as the bill 
was evidently about to pass, he arose in his place and 
stepped out into the middle of the chamber. Pouring 
forth a torrent of abuse upon the members who opposed 
him, he stamped his foot as a signal for the soldiers to 
enter. " Your hour has come," were his words as the 
soldiers filed into the room, " the Lord hath done with 
you. It is not fit that you should sit here any longer. 
You should give place to better men. You are no Parlia- 
ment." The speaker was forced from his seat and the 
room was quickly cleared by the soldiery. Lifting the 
mace from the table, "What," inquired Cromwell, "shall 
we do with this bauble ? Take it away." 

Cromwell made Lord Protector. — The Council of State, 
dismissed with as little ceremony as Parliament, was fol- 
lowed by another council, and that by a convention, com- 



200 THE COMMONWEALTH 

posed of Independents selected from lists furnished by 
the churches, and called the Little Parliament, or Bare- 
bone's Parliament. It accomplished nothing, and voted 
its own dissolution after appointing still another council, 
composed of eight men with Cromwell at the head. This 
council summoned a Parliament to represent England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, the right to vote for members being 
granted to all having a property of two hundred pounds, 
except Catholics and those who had fought for the king. 
During the interim of nine months, for the preservation of 
order, Cromwell was induced by the council to assume the 
government, with the title of Lord Protector. 

The same body adopted an Instrument carefully defin- 
ing the powers of the Protector, and organizing a strictly 
constitutional government. The advice of this council 
was made necessary in the management of foreign affairs, 
in questions of peace and war, and in the appointment of 
officers. Parliament was to meet once in three years, 
make the laws, subject for twenty days to the Protector's 
veto, and levy taxes. 

Cromwell usurps the Government. — In the writs for an 
election of members it had been expressly stated that Par- 
liament should not have power to alter the government as 
settled in a single person and a Parliament. Its first step, 
on assembling in 1654, was to take into consideration the 
organization of the government. The question of the Pro- 
tector's veto power was debated for three days, when 
Cromwell, barring the way to the Parliament Chamber by 
a file of soldiers, turned back all who refused to sign an 
agreement not to alter the form of government. Three 
hundred signed and were allowed to enter. One hundred 



OLIVER CROMWELL 201 

refused and were turned back. The signers adhered to 
their agreement, but fell back on the tactics of their prede- 
cessors, refusing to vote money for the army without a 
redress of grievances. This brought an angry dissolution, 
and the government relapsed into the absolutism from 
which the civil war had freed it. Taxes were levied and 
laws were made on the sole authority of the Protector. 
The reaction in the public mind in favor of the monarchy 
was intense. Faith in the fundamental principles of the 
Commonwealth faded away, as its outward fabric crumbled 
under the usurpations of Cromwell. Royalist revolts 
broke out in various quarters, but they were easily crushed 
by the vigorous soldier who now had at his disposal all 
the powers of the state. England was divided into ten 
military districts, and each was placed under martial law. 
Scotland and Ireland were reduced to order, but the 
severities practiced by English soldiers in the latter coun- 
try have left to this day their bitter fruit of undying 
hatred of the English rule. 

Prosperity under Cromwell's Rule. — In spite of the dis- 
content and opposition of the Royalists, the administration 
of public affairs under Cromwell was characterized by wis- 
dom, moderation, and success almost beyond precedent in 
the history of England. Cromwell reformed the law and 
made its administration uniform. " To hang a man for 
sixpence and pardon murder," as he expressed it, did not 
accord with his idea of justice. Though humane and 
tolerant in general, he was unrelenting to Catholics, and 
his campaign in Ireland was merciless. He allowed the 
Jews, who had been banished from the realm in the reign 
of Edward I., and who were still hated of all men, to 



202 THE COMMONWEALTH 

return to England, and did his best to protect them. To 
a new sect of Puritans, called Quakers, 1 the object of 
derision to all others, he extended the shield of his power. 
Cromwell's crude but effective statesmanship was best dis- 
played in his management of foreign affairs. Kings, in 
whose capitals at the beginning of the Commonwealth the 
lives of English ministers were not safe, earnestly solicited 
his alliance. A treaty favorable to England was made 
with Holland. The Mediterranean was cleared of the 
pirates that had long made their haunts on the African 
shore, and the liberation of the white slaves held by the 
Barbary States was secured. Jamaica and Dunkirk were 
taken from Spain, and an entire fleet of merchant ships 
and galleon convoys was destroyed in the harbor of Santa 
Cruz. The Waldenses, occupying the valleys of Pied- 
mont, among the Alps, were saved from massacre by his 
determined intercession. In 1656 Cromwell summoned 
another Parliament. It voted supplies, but it protested 
against the military despotism under which England con- 
tinued. Cromwell at once withdrew the soldiers quartered 
in the ten military divisions. Although, on account of the 
opposition of the army, he refused the title of King, which 

1 The Quakers, or Society of Friends, came into notice about the middle of the 
seventeenth century. Their refusal to bear arms, take oaths, and conform to 
the laws regulating public worship brought them into conflict with church and 
state. The patience with which they suffered persecution for conscience' sake, 
their simplicity, purity of life, and spirituality in religion won for them the respect 
and sympathy of Cromwell. 

They have outlived the distinction of being a " peculiar people " in any invidious 
sense, and, as a religious body, are held in the highest esteem among Christian 
nations. Their refusal to bear arms was a protest against war, and a plea for uni- 
versal peace, which is the hope and prayer of the Christian world to-day. It is 
worthy of note that the Quakers were the first religious body in the world to take 
a stand against the slave trade. They voted in Annual Convocation, in 1751, to 
dismiss any member engaged in any way in the slave trade. 



OLIVER CROMWELL 203 

this Parliament proposed to confer upon him, he accepted 
the power to name his own successor. 

Cromwell's Death. — Cromwell died September 3, 1658, 
of an attack of ague, but his end was hastened by anxiety. 
His last years were full of trouble. There was a growing 
discontent among the people at the strictness of his gov- 
ernment. He was surrounded by conspiracies and men- 
aced with assassination. He became a prey to perpetual 
fear, wearing armor under his clothing and arms about 
his person. His sleeping room was constantly changed 
to lessen the danger of midnight attacks, and when he 
went abroad, he returned by a different route to avoid an 
ambush of his enemies. 

Cromwell's Character. — Of Cromwell's character and 
motives there is a wide difference of opinion. Personally, 
he was one of nature's noblemen. Rising from the rank 
of a country gentleman to an estate and fame truly regal, 
he lost neither his simplicity nor his piety. That he felt 
some of the promptings of ambition, it is difficult to deny ; 
that he possessed a great earnest soul, chiefly animated by 
a desire to promote the welfare of his country, it is easy 
to believe. Had Cromwell been of royal blood, and the 
throne his birthright, his reign would have been the pride 
and boast of Englishmen through all time. Cromwell has 
been compelled to bear the odium of all the extreme 
measures that followed the civil war. Both when he was 
Captain General of the army and when he was Lord 
Protector of England, did his moderate counsels avail to 
defeat the wild schemes that always spring up in times of 
revolution, and more than once did he endanger his influ- 
ence with his own soldiers by his conservatism. Armies 



204 THE COMMONWEALTH 

are rarely composed of men of such positive minds as the 
Puritan soldiers. Almost any one of them could preach 
to his fellows what was called a sermon, and he had, too, 
his own ideas of government as well as of religion. Even 
a Cromwell could not always bring men of such independ- 
ent minds to his own way of thinking. It has been wisely 
said in regard to his policy with his army, that " to ordi- 
narily govern, Cromwell was sometimes compelled to sub- 
mit." The necessity of retaining the confidence and 
support of the soldiers, to assure his personal power and 
the ascendency of England as a nation, was imperative. 
He had an intuitive sense of the nation's ills and the 
proper remedies to be applied. That his intuitions were, 
in the main, correct, finds the best proof in the marvelous 
success of his policy. 

In his government, the personal and constitutional 
elements were strangely mingled. Ruling ordinarily in 
accordance with the laws, he did not hesitate, on occasion, 
to override or change them. When Parliament failed to 
meet his expectations, he dismissed it, and, like Charles, 
ruled alone. There the similarity ends. Charles ruled alone 
to maintain the royal prerogative ; Cromwell, to give peace 
and prosperity to England. But there was, while Crom- 
well lived, a universal feeling that the laws and the con- 
stitution were ever at the mercy of an individual will. 
Such a system as Cromwell's, however favorable to order 
and progress under a wise administration, was inconsistent 
with a free constitution. Under a weak head, it would 
inevitably result in anarchy ; under an ambitious one, 
it would relapse into a despotism. 

But Cromwell's enemies were unrelenting. It mattered 



RICHARD CROMWELL 205 

little to Cavalier and noble, who regarded him only as an 
upstart and an interloper, that his just and able rule com- 
manded the respect of all Christendom ; nor to the Royalist, 
who regarded him only as a low-born pretender and a fit 
mark for every assassin's dagger, that he made his country 
so great and powerful that the simple name of English- 
man became a protecting shield to the humblest citizen 
that bore it, in any part of the civilized world. But 
whatever may be justly said of his wisdom and patriotism, 
it must be acknowledged that Cromwell was a usurper. 
The ruler who, even once, manifestly sets aside a settled 
constitution, or tramples under foot established law, is 
a usurper. This Cromwell did, at will. The people 
of England with much peril and bloodshed had just 
struggled through one revolution, that their traditional 
liberties might be preserved to them ; but when the des- 
potism, however violent, of the Stuarts, merely gave 
place to the despotism, however mild, of Cromwell, 
freedom was won only to be lost again. The legitimate 
result of Cromwell's usurpation in 1653 was the return 
of the Stuarts in 1660, and the continuance of religious 
intolerance and arbitrary government for almost a gen- 
eration. 

Richard Cromwell. — Cromwell named his son Richard 
as his successor. The father was both soldier and states- 
man, the son was neither ; and so, after a few months of 
fruitless effort to control a mutinous army and govern 
an almost rebellious people, Richard resigned the Pro- 
tectorship and retired to private life. 

The Restoration. — General Monk was in Scotland at 
the head of a well-appointed force. He commenced at 



206 THE COMMONWEALTH 

once his march toward London, where his arrival was 
awaited with indescribable anxiety. Though long silent 
as to his intentions, he was favorable to the restoration 
of the monarchy, and was in secret correspondence with 
Prince Charles, who was at Breda. The famous " Long 
Parliament," once more coming together, issued writs for 
a new election, and voted its own dissolution, just twenty 
years from its first meeting. The new Parliament assem- 
bled on the 25th of April, 1660, and, agreeably to the 
wishes of all parties except the army, invited Prince 
Charles to return to the home and throne of his father. 
He landed at Dover on the 25th of May, and was crowned 
King of England on the 29th. This is known in history 
as "The Restoration." 

The Last Muster of the Puritan Army. — One of the 
most suggestive pictures presented to us in the annals of 
the English nation, is that of the old Puritan army, thirty 
thousand strong, drawn up at Blackheath, to witness the 
return of Charles. It might be called " The Downfall of 
Puritanism." Those grim and stalwart men, who had been 
the arbiters of the fate of England for nearly twenty 
years, whose resistless charges had carried dismay into the 
ranks of the enemy at home and abroad, stood like lifeless 
statues, while the ringing bells and glad shouts of the 
people welcomed the returning Stuart to the throne of his 
ancestors. They had swept away the throne, the House 
of Lords, and the established church, and had re- 
organized, or dismissed at will, the House of Commons. 
But in the presence of the people, reinspired with their 
old reverence for royalty, they were beaten without a 
battle. Sadly and thoughtfully, but without a murmur, 



CHARLES II 207 

they laid down their arms and quietly returned to their 
former homes, henceforth to be distinguished from their 
neighbors only by greater industry and sobriety. Crom- 
well had been the representative of Puritanism, and his 
usurpation of power was regarded as a Puritan usurpation. 
When, therefore, he assumed all of royalty but the name, 
and ruled England through his army instead of his Parlia- 
ment, Puritanism became a political force instead of a 
moral power, and its fall at the death of Cromwell was 
inevitable. 

CHARLES II., 1660 TO 1685 — 25 YEARS 

The Circumstances under which Charles became King. — 

Charles II. ascended the throne in 1660, but the Royalist 
party dated the beginning of his reign from the death of 
his father, in 1649. The circumstances under which he 
became an actual sovereign were auspicious. Perhaps no 
other English king was ever welcomed to the throne 
with so wild a delight as he. A few words as to the cir- 
cumstances may be proper. 

That Cromwell was just in his rule and made England 
glorious, did not reconcile the people to the essential 
despotism he established. Even Republicans were unwill- 
ing to live under a government republican only in name. 
After the death of Cromwell, and during the administra- 
tion of his son Richard, the government was fast relapsing 
into anarchy. With Richard's retirement, England was 
left not only without a head, but without a settled form of 
government. The monarchy had been abolished and the 
republic had proved a failure. What would follow none 
could tell ; but it was plain to all that the soldiers in arms 



208 HOUSE OF STUART 

were the sole arbiters of the fate of England. The one 
fate to be dreaded was a succession of irresponsible 
military rulers. Puritans and Churchmen, Republicans 
and Royalists, beheld the gulf that yawned before them, 
and, for a time, forgot their differences. For a peril that 
all could see but none could fathom, there was but one 
alternative, — the restoration of the monarchy and the 
return of the Stuarts. It was not then the fickleness of 
the English people, as is too often charged, but their con- 
scious and narrow escape from nameless national woes, 
that caused such unbounded enthusiasm when Charles 
Stuart reentered the capital of his ancestors. 

The Social Revolution. — The extreme legislation of the 
Puritans had made their rule irksome to the people. 
Innocent amusements had been strictly prohibited, and 
piety, or its profession, had been made an essential qualifi- 
cation for office. With the restoration of the monarchy 
and a repeal of Puritan legislation, there was an inevitable 
reaction. The dance around the Maypole on the village 
green was never so joyous as now, and Christmas festivi- 
ties returned with more than their wonted hilarity. Had 
Charles possessed but ordinary wisdom, could the experi- 
ence of his father and his own early misfortunes have 
taught him the one lesson to study and respect the wishes 
of the people, his reign would have been peaceful and 
popular. But he broke every promise he had made, and 
disappointed every expectation of the people. 

Although they welcomed the removal of unnatural 
restraints, they were not prepared for the unbridled 
license that prevailed throughout the country after the 
restoration. Before long they were turning in disgust 



CHARLES II 209 

from the king they had welcomed so heartily, and wish- 
ing they had the great Oliver back again. Nothing more 
vividly illustrates the extent of this social revolution than 
the history of the stage. During the Puritan period, 
theatrical performances, however innocent, had been 
rigidly prohibited. With Charles returned the theater, 
foul and revolting, without even a French refinement to 
its grossness. But the painted scenery and loose manners 
of the new stage only reflected real life in fashionable 
circles. The king himself led the shameless revels of the 
royal court ; the court gave the standard of morality to the 
capital ; and thence the deadly contagion spread, infecting 
fashionable society in all parts of the kingdom. Religion 
became a byword and morality a mockery. It is but just 
to say that the great mass of the English people remained 
unaffected by this incoming tide of vice. Although 
Puritanism, as a political power, had fallen, and its very 
name had become a jest among the now dominant Cav- 
aliers, the sturdy virtues and the deep religious spirit that 
were its very essence had been too deeply implanted in 
the minds and hearts of the English people to be easily 
removed. They still remained to mold English character 
and modify English institutions, and they are, to this day, 
a rich inheritance of the English people. 

The Convention Parliament. — The Parliament that 
restored the monarchy is called the " Convention Parlia- 
ment." It early passed an "Act of Oblivion and Indem- 
nity " extending a general pardon to all offenders, except 
certain of the Regicides. Of these, ten were executed 
and nineteen we're imprisoned for life, although Charles 
had virtually promised to pardon all who voluntarily sur- 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 14 



2IO HOUSE OF STUART 

rendered within fourteen days. Many fled to foreign 
parts, three, Goffe, Whalley, and Dixwell, finding refuge 
in America. This Act restored to the Royalists the 
estates taken from them by the Commonwealth, except 
when the transfer had been made by sale, but it gave them 
no redress for other losses. The dissatisfied Cavaliers pro- 
nounced the Act one of oblivion to the king's friends 
and indemnity to his enemies, for they had been mulcted 
without mercy under the Commonwealth, and many of 
them had been forced to sell their estates to meet the de- 
mands of the government. This Parliament abolished the 
last relic of the feudal system, the tenure of lands by 
knight service, including the wardship of minors and the 
marriage of heiresses, that had been fruitful sources of 
income to the king, in place of which he received a life 
grant of ;£ 1,200,000 a year. 

The Restoration of the Episcopal Religion. — The dis- 
solution of this Parliament and a new election resulted 
in the return of the "Cavalier Parliament" of 1661. This 
body by successive acts formally reestablished Episco- 
pacy as the national religion. " The Solemn League 
and Covenant " was ordered to be burned by the public 
hangman. Charles himself became an Episcopalian, 
declaring that " Presbyterianism is no religion for a 
gentleman." The "Corporation Act" required all pub- 
lic officers to worship in accordance with the usages of 
the established church, and to deny the right of the 
subject to bear arms against the king. The " Act of 
Uniformity " required all the clergy to adopt the prayer 
book and assent to all its contents, on pain of expul- 
sion. Two thousand Puritan clergymen were ejected 



CHARLES II 211 

from their livings in one day, for noncompliance with 
this statute. 

Attempt to force Episcopacy upon the Scots. — To gain 
the aid of the Scotch Presbyterians, Prince Charles, on 
New Year's Day, 165 1, solemnly signed the Covenant at 
Scone, thus pledging himself to support the Presbyterian 
religion. But he now not only turned Episcopalian him- 
self, but he resolved to force Episcopacy upon the Scots. 
The Earl of Lauderdale was sent to Scotland with 
unlimited powers to carry out the wishes of the king. 
Bishops were appointed, and soldiers posted at the vari- 
ous centers to compel attendance on the worship of the 
established church, and to collect fines from nonattend- 
ants. An impotent rising of the persecuted Covenanters 
in the neighborhood of Edinburgh became an excuse for 
the most barbarous legislation and the most dreadful 
cruelty. The "thumbscrew" and "boot" became com- 
mon instruments of torture. From this time, 1662, to 
the Revolution in 1688, the Scotch Covenanters main- 
tained their faith amidst persecutions and sufferings 
from which the mind recoils with horror. 

The " Conventicle Act " forbade all Puritan assemblies 
for public worship. The faithful Covenanters, armed for 
self-defense, held secret meetings, at midnight, in the 
depths of the woods. English soldiers sometimes burst 
upon them with merciless slaughter. The seagirt prison 
on Bass Rock, and the gloomy walls of Dunbarton Cas- 
tle, witnessed many an awful death by slow and cruel 
torture, many a sad and lingering one in dark and dreary 
dungeons. The " Five Mile Act " forbade nonconform- 
ing clergymen to appear within five miles of any town 



212 HOUSE OF STUART 

or the places of their former worship,' and excluded them 
from the work of instructing the young, dooming them 
to penury and even starvation and death. An Act was 
passed for the suppression of Quakers, who were spe- 
cially odious to the Cavaliers from their refusal to bear 
arms. English as well as Scotch prisons were crowded 
with Puritan offenders. 

Foreign Affairs. — The history of the foreign affairs of 
this reign is but a humiliating record of royal intrigue 
and treachery. Charles is charged with involving the 
country in war for the simple purpose of obtaining a 
vote of money for its prosecution. The money, once in 
his hands, went to the support of shameless favorites, 
while English ships were left to decay, and their crews 
remained unpaid. The first of these wars was with 
Holland. It grew out of the rivalry of the Dutch and 
English merchants seeking a monopoly of the trade in 
gold dust and ivory on the coast of Guinea. An Eng- 
lish fleet, sent to America during the first year of this 
war, 1664, compelled the surrender of all the Dutch 
colonies to England. The government of these colonies 
was granted by the king to his brother, the Duke of 
York, from whom New York received its name. 

The Plague in London. — A signal victory gained off 
the Suffolk coast, near Lowestoft, caused little exultation 
in London, for an enemy more dreaded than the Dutch 
was already in the suburbs of the great city. The worst 
fears were realized. That dread pestilence, the Plague, 
was soon in every house, bringing death and consterna- 
tion to the crowded population. In six months one hun- 
dred thousand persons died. Grass grew in streets that 



CHARLES II "213 

were once the busy marts of trade. Scarcely a sound 
was heard but the rumbling of the carts, and the cries 
of the attendants, echoing through the city and piercing 
the death-haunted houses, " Bring out your dead, bring 
out your dead." 

The Great Fire of London. — During the next year, 
1666, called by Dryden the "Year of Wonders," the 
greater part of the city was laid in ashes by an exten- 
sive conflagration. In the end the fire proved a bless- 
ing, for it destroyed the filthy sections still infested by 
the Plague, and, in time, narrow lanes and wretched 
hovels gave place to wide, well-drained streets, and 
more commodious dwellings. 

During the year following the fire, the Dutch, every- 
where victorious by reason of the decay of the English 
navy, sailed up the Thames and threatened London 
itself. The war was ended by the Peace of Breda, in 
1668. Clarendon, who had been at the head of affairs 
of state, becoming unpopular on account of the war, was 
compelled to resign to escape impeachment. He was 
succeeded by a Cabinet or Cabal, 1 composed of five 
members. 

Charles a Pensioner of Louis of France. — But that 
which brands this administration with the deepest in- 
famy is a secret compact made with Louis XIV., King 
of France, in 1670. Louis coveted the possession of the 
Netherlands, and sent an army to invade its territory. 
To preserve the balance of power thus endangered, Eng- 

1 These were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, the 
initials of whose names form the word Cabal, a word known before, signifying 
a Cabinet. But so corrupt was the Cabal of Charles II., the word has ever since 
been applied to cliques of political tricksters. 



214 - HOUSE OF STUART 

land, Holland, and Sweden formed the " Triple Alliance." 
While professing to enter heartily into this Alliance, 
Charles was busily negotiating a secret treaty with Louis. 
For an annual pension of .£200,000, he agreed to with- 
draw from the Alliance, assist Louis's scheme of conquest 
in the Netherlands, and adopt the Catholic religion. It 
was stipulated that he should announce his change of 
religion as soon as it was prudent, and that Louis should 
lend him a French army in case of rebellion. Charles 
did another thing especially humiliating to the nation. 
Dunkirk, that had been won from Spain by the valor 
of Cromwell, and had become almost as essential to 
English power, and quite as essential to English pride, 
as Calais had been a century before, was sold to the 
French king for £400,000, merely to pander to the 
pleasures of a vicious court. Agreeably to the treaty 
made with Louis, Charles, in 1672, began a war with 
Holland. On the sea, the Dutch navy gained several 
victories over the combined fleets of England and 
France. The refusal of Parliament to vote supplies and 
the unpopularity of the war compelled Charles to make 
peace in two years. France continued hostilities till 1678, 
when, by the Treaty of Nimeguen, she rose to the first 
rank among the powers of Europe. Though gaining 
many advantages during the war, she failed to conquer 
the brave little republic. 

Declaration of Indulgence. — Just before the beginning 
of the war, Charles had issued a Declaration of Indul- 
gence, establishing the principle of religious toleration to 
all sorts of nonconformists or recusants. This Declara- 
tion gave instant liberty to thousands of Puritans and 



CHARLES II 215 

Catholics, who, for many years, had pined in English dun- 
geons. Bunyan left the cell he had occupied for twelve 
years in Bedford jail, where he had composed that most 
wonderful allegory in the English tongue, " Pilgrim's 
Progress." There was general distrust as to the motives 
of the king in issuing the Declaration of Indulgence. It 
was believed to be the initiative in a scheme to restore 
Catholics to office, and Catholicism to England. A per- 
sistent refusal of Parliament to vote supplies compelled 
the king to withdraw it. 

The Test Act. — Parliament quickly followed up its 
advantage by passing the Test Act, requiring all officers, 
civil and military, to take the Oath of Supremacy. This 
oath contained a denial of the peculiar tenets of Catholi- 
cism, and an affirmation of those of the established church. 
The numerous resignations that followed showed to what 
an extent Catholics had already been brought into office, 
and confirmed previous suspicions of the Catholic tenden- 
cies of the king. The king's brother James, Duke of 
York, the Lord High Admiral, an acknowledged Catholic, 
was forced to retire from the navy. 

The Popish Plot. — There were widespread fear and 
distrust. Whispers of Catholic plots filled the air. At 
this moment, when the public mind was excited with 
apprehension and ready to credit any tale however wild, 
Titus Oates came out, in 1678, with pretended revelations 
of a plot to murder the king and all the Protestants in 
England. It was like a spark in a powder magazine. All 
England was thrown into a frenzy of excitement. The 
trainbands patrolled the streets of London. The Catho- 
lics, to the number of thirty thousand, were ordered to 



2l6 HOUSE OF STUART 

leave the city. They were excluded by statute from Par- 
liament, and, for a century and a half, were debarred from 
membership in either House. Fresh testimony of the 
coming of a Catholic army caused a fresh panic, and every 
Catholic in the kingdom was disarmed. Trials, convic- 
tions, and executions followed one another with indecent 
haste. The most eminent victim was the venerable Lord 
Stafford, who was guilty of no offense, and was offered up 
to satisfy the maddened popular thirst for Catholic blood. 

A bill to deprive James of the right of succession passed 
the House of Commons but was defeated in the House of 
Lords. The discovery of a letter to Louis, written by the 
Earl of Danby, who had become Prime Minister after the 
fall of the Cabal, soliciting money, and exposing the de- 
pendence of Charles on the French king, gave an air of 
reality to the revelations of Oates, and fanned still more 
the popular frenzy. Just at this moment it was discov- 
ered that the whole story of the " Popish Plot " was a 
pure fabrication. 

The Rye House Plot. — A real Protestant plot, chiefly to 
secure the exclusion of James from the succession, came to 
light later in the reign, implicating men of high rank, 
among whom were Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney. 
A few reckless men of the same party formed another 
scheme to assassinate the king and his brother as they 
rode past a place called the Rye House. The two plots 
were ingeniously made to appear as one by the lawyers of 
the crown, sealing the doom of the high-born conspirators, 
who speedily perished on the scaffold. 

The Habeas Corpus Act, A.D. 1679. — In this reign the 
Habeas Corpus Act, the third great statute advancing 



CHARLES II 217 

constitutional liberty, was passed. It was specially de- 
signed to secure the personal liberty of the subject, for- 
bidding his detention in prison without cause duly shown 
before a legal tribunal. Although the principle estab- 
lished by this Act had been embodied in one of the lead- 
ing sections of the Great Charter, the arbitrary wills of 
kings and the ingenuity of ministers had hitherto rendered 
it entirely inoperative. The freedom of the press was 
also secured in this reign. This was accomplished by a 
refusal of Parliament to renew the license law, by which 
a supervision of the press had been maintained. 

Milton. — It was in this reign that John Milton, deprived 
of the office he had held under Cromwell, poor, old, and 
blind, achieved that greatest triumph of his life, the 
writing of " Paradise Lost." 

The Merry Monarch. — With all his faults, Charles was 
an easy, good-natured king, going quietly along in the path 
of his pleasures, even when the most exciting events were 
occurring around him. His excessive good nature has 
given him in history the title of " Merry Monarch." The 
various plots, real and pretended, had brought a reaction 
in the public mind in favor of the king. While the latter 
avoided an open or defiant disregard of the laws, he went 
deliberately to work to make his government absolute, 
inaugurating what has been termed the second Stuart 
tyranny. The Test Act excluding Catholics from office 
was quietly ignored, and James was restored to his former 
position as Lord High Admiral. Although making no 
public avowal of his adoption of the Catholic faith, 
Charles desired the ministrations of a Catholic priest in 
his dying moments. 



2l8 HOUSE OF STUART 

JAMES II., 1685 TO 1688 — 3 YEARS 

The Second Stuart Tyranny. — During the preceding 
reign, James, Duke of York, had gained considerable 
credit as commander of the navy. All efforts to exclude 
him from the throne on account of his pronounced devo- 
tion to the Papacy had failed, and now, at the death of 
Charles without heirs, he assumed the crown without 
opposition, under the title of James II. Much was hoped 
from the supposed manliness of his character, and still 
more from the solemn avowal made in the presence of 
his council, at its first meeting after the death of Charles, 
to support and defend the established church, and exe- 
cute the laws of the realm. But the high expectations 
that preceded the coronation were equaled by the disap- 
pointment that followed it. Enthusiasm soon gave place 
to gloom, and gloom to horror. James was not a mere 
lover of ease and pleasure like Charles, but he soon 
showed that he was more indifferent to public sentiment, 
more defiant of the law, and more malignant toward men 
of other views. Within three days after his accession, and 
against the advice of his council, he levied customs without 
the consent of Parliament. The first elections were carried 
by fraud and violence in the interests of the king. Parlia- 
ment, being subservient to his will, approved the levy, and 
voted the king a life income of .£2,000,000. Its action on 
the subject of religion was molded to suit the royal pleas- 
ure. Though it was silent on the subject in England, the 
laws against the Scotch Covenanters were made more 
severe and executed more rigorously than ever before. 
An ill-organized attempt of the Duke of Argyle to rouse 



JAMES II 219 

the clans to resistance quickly ended in the death of the 
duke and the scattering of the clans. 

The Rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth. — An attempt 
in the west, equally rash, by the Duke of Monmouth, 
Charles II. 's eldest natural son, who had for his object the 
overthrow of James and his own assumption of royal power, 
was even more disastrous. The royal army defeated the 
rebels at Sedgemoor, July 6, 1685. The polished but 
cowardly Monmouth, when brought a prisoner into the 
presence of the angry king, prostrated himself at James's 
feet, which he wet with his tears, while piteously begging 
for his life. He was quickly sent to the block, and his de- 
luded followers were hunted down like wild beasts. These 
unfortunate attempts only strengthened the power of the 
king, for they enkindled a new feeling of loyalty in the 
hearts of the people. They furnished, too, a plausible 
excuse for a large increase of the army. The most severe 
measures were adopted against the rebels. 

The English Reign of Terror. — A Circuit Court was 
organized in the rebellious counties, and its action was 
better suited to the darkest of the Dark Ages than to the 
enlightenment of the seventeenth century. Chief Justice 
Jeffreys presided. We know not from which the mind re- 
coils with deepest horror, the merciless judgments of this 
fiend in human form against the innocent and the guilty, 
or his heartless levity in the midst of the sufferings he 
inflicted. We search, in vain, the pages of history for a 
name that has descended to a more infamous immortality 
than has that of Jeffreys. His court has been variously 
characterized, in history, as " Jeffreys' Campaign," the 
" Bloody Assize," and the " English Reign of Terror." Its 



220 HOUSE OF STUART 

first victim was a woman seventy years of age, Alice Lisle, 
widow of one of the members of the High Court of Justice. 
She was beheaded for giving food and lodging to a flying 
rebel. Another woman, Elizabeth Gaunt, was burned for 
the same offense, while others were scourged from town to 
town. One Captain Kirke, with a company of troopers as 
merciless as himself and ironically called "Kirke's Lambs," 
had, before the appointment of Jeffreys, been charged with 
the punishment of the rebels. It is said that they were 
accustomed, for entertainment at their carousals, to have 
their prisoners hung on lofty gibbets in front of their win- 
dows, and the drums beat to furnish music to the dance of 
the quivering bodies. To an American there is no paral- 
lel to this, except in the cruelties of the savage who dances 
in glee around his tortured victim. As in the Wars of the 
Roses, the heads and limbs of the dead were posted in 
public places to strike terror into the hearts of the inhabit- 
ants. 1 

It will hardly be credited that the queen herself and her 
maids of honor made merchandise of freeborn English 
subjects, begging the lives of the condemned that they 

1 Knight, in his most interesting work, gives the following graphic picture of the 
barbarities practiced by a Chief Justice of England, and sanctioned by its king, 
late in the seventeenth century. " The pitchy cauldron was constantly boiling in 
the Assize towns to preserve the heads and limbs from corruption that were to be 
distributed through the beautiful Western Country. As the leaves were dropping 
in that Autumn of 1685, the great oak of many a village green was decorated with 
a mangled quarter. On every tower of the Somersetshire churches a ghastly head 
looked down upon those who gathered together for the worship of the God of love. 
The directing post for the traveler was elevated into a gibbet. The laborer, re- 
turning home beneath the harvest moon, hurried past the body suspended in its 
creaking gimmaces [chains]. The eloquent historian of this reign of terror has 
attested from his own childish recollections that 'within the last forty years, peas- 
ants in some districts well knew the accursed spots and passed them unwillingly 
after sunset.' " 



JAMES II 221 

might sell them into slavery in the West Indies. Even 
the innocent and thoughtless girls who had presented to 
Monmouth an embroidered banner, as he entered their 
native town of Taunton, were saved from a like fate only 
by the payment of ^2000, to the maids of honor. Jeffreys 
returned to London, enriched by the pardons he had 
sold, and with the boast on his lips that he had " hanged 
more for high treason than all the judges of England since 
William the Conqueror," and was rewarded by his appre- 
ciating master with the Great Seal. 

Attempt to restore Catholicism to England. — Flushed 
with success in crushing the rebellion, James next moved 
boldly toward the goal he had in view, the restoration of 
Catholicism to England. Catholics were put at the head 
of the army, now numbering twenty thousand men, also of 
the navy, the council, and the courts. They filled the civil 
offices and swarmed about the court. Monks of all orders, 
dressed in their peculiar garb, publicly paraded the streets 
of London, and Jesuits were allowed to establish a school 
in the Savoy. Parliament, hitherto the tool of the king, 
alarmed at his evident purpose, and at the boldness with 
which he moved to its execution, refused a vote of sup- 
plies, and was instantly prorogued. But the opposition of 
Parliament and the discontent of the people only increased 
the audacity of the king. He constituted a special court 
of seven members with Jeffreys at the head, commissioned 
to exercise complete control over matters of religion. It 
was the " High Commission " revived. The Earl of Perth, 
one of the most zealous supporters of the policy of James 
in matters of religion, was appointed to the government of 
Scotland, and the Earl of Tyrconnel, equally devoted to 



222 HOUSE OF STUART 

James and his policy, to that of Ireland. A royal proc- 
lamation, forbidding ministers to preach on disputed sub- 
jects, was answered by stirring appeals from almost every 
pulpit, while the public press teemed with the indignant 
protests of the people. James next sought to place the 
great institutions of learning under Catholic control. He 
tried to force upon one of the Oxford colleges a Catholic 
head. The fellows had elected one of their own number, 
declining to accept the nominee of the king. James sum- 
moned them to his presence. " I am your king, I will be 
obeyed ! " said he. " Go to your chapel this instant, and 
elect the Bishop ! Let those who refuse look to it, for 
they shall feel the whole weight of my hand! " 

The Seven Bishops. — All England was now in a fer- 
ment ; but James, possessed with the insane obstinacy of 
his race, and deaf to the entreaties of his Catholic friends, 
and even of the Pope, who counseled moderation, pressed 
swiftly forward to his doom. He issued a " Declaration 
of Indulgence," similar to that of his brother, Charles II., 
abolishing all religious tests for office and all penal laws 
against nonconformists. This was ordered to be read to 
every congregation in the land. Only two hundred out of 
ten thousand clergymen obeyed. A protest signed by 
seven bishops was presented to the king. " It is a stand- 
ard of rebellion," said James, and he sent the bishops to 
the Tower. They were speedily brought before the King's 
Bench on a charge of seditious libel. Being acquitted by 
the jury after a day's trial, they were released amidst the 
wildest acclamations of the people. That night, June 30, 
1688, was a memorable one in London. The whole city 
was illuminated in honor of the seven bishops, bonfires 



JAMES II 223 

blazed in every street, and rockets lit up the heavens. 
To overawe the city, James had established a camp at 
Hounslow, midway between Windsor and Whitehall. He 
was present with the army when the news of the acquittal 
arrived, but left at once for London. As he rode away he 
heard a great shouting behind him. " What is that ? " 
asked the startled king. " It is nothing but the soldiers 
who are glad that the bishops are acquitted," was the re- 
ply. " Do you call that nothing ? " rejoined the king, now 
bitterly conscious that he had lost the sympathy of the 
soldiers who were his only hope. Not daunted as yet, 
he dispatched the infected regiments to distant stations, 
replacing them with soldiers drawn chiefly from the garri- 
sons of Scotland and Ireland. He assembled an army 
of forty thousand men, but he little dreamed that many 
of its officers were already in a league against him. 
Among these officers was Lord Churchill, afterward, as 
Duke of Marlborough, to become the most famous general 
of his times. 

William of Orange invited to take the English Crown. — 
The very day the bishops were acquitted, seven leading 
nobles sent a secret invitation to William, Prince of 
Orange, who had married James's eldest daughter, to 
come to England with an army and take the crown, assur- 
ing him of abundant support. William had seen King 
James become the pensioner of Louis of France, William's 
inveterate enemy. He had watched his persistent efforts 
to restore Catholicism to England. He had witnessed, 
with undisguised resentment, his evident purpose to trans- 
form Ireland into a Catholic state, to become (according 
to the French ambassador) an asylum for English Catho- 



224 HOUSE OF STUART 

lies, and a possible refuge for himself, — a scheme that 
threatened the integrity of the empire of which William's 
wife was the prospective heir. His counsels and his pro- 
tests had been alike unheeded. Finally, when it was 
announced that the queen had given birth to a son, Wil- 
liam shared the general belief that it was a supposititious 
child, to be foisted upon England in the interests of the 
Papacy. His purpose was formed, and the invitation of 
the English nobles was accepted. James and Louis were 
in perfect accord. When William began to gather ships 
and soldiers for the English campaign, Louis schemed to 
detain him on the continent. 

By the greatest mistake of his life, as some historians 
term it, Louis hurled his forces against Germany instead 
of Holland, and the latter country being, for the present, 
safe, William was free to pursue his English campaign. 
With a fleet of five hundred ships, and an army of four- 
teen thousand men, he sailed from the Scheldt, and landed 
at Tor Bay, on the southern coast, the 5th of November, 
1688. His army took up its line of march for the interior, 
receiving at first but few additions. But soon powerful 
nobles began to arrive, and important towns to give in 
their adhesion. 

The Flight of James to France. — James struggled with 
the energy of despair to meet the crisis. He sought to 
turn the current of public opinion by correcting abuses 
and making concessions, and even went frantically about 
touching for the king's evil, but all to no purpose. The 
people were wholly alienated from their king. The army 
of forty thousand which he had gathered at Salisbury re- 
treated in panic before the banners of Orange, and began 



JAMES II 22 5 

to break up. Its officers went over to William, or retired 
entirely from the contest. James was utterly deserted. 
" God help me, for my own children have forsaken me," 
said the wretched king, when he learned that his daughter 
Anne had gone over to his enemies. Tossing the Great 
Seal into the Thames, he quickly followed his wife and 
child in their flight to France, without striking a blow for 
his kingdom and crown. 

The Glorious Revolution Peacefully Accomplished. — The 
House of Peers held a session, and requested William to 
call a convention of the people and to assume, in the mean- 
time, the provisional government of England. The con- 
vention assembled in January, 1689, and declared Mary, 
eldest daughter of James II., William's wife, to be the 
lawful heir to the vacant throne. But Mary declined to 
accept royal honors that were not shared by her husband, 
and the convention then invited William and Mary to 
become joint sovereigns of England, with the actual ad- 
ministration of the government vested in the former. 
This proposition was accepted. Having signed a Declara- 
tion of Rights, reaffirming the ancient liberties of the 
English people, William and Mary received their crowns, 
and "The Glorious Revolution" was accomplished. Well 
may a revolution be called glorious, that, without the shed- 
ding of a drop of blood, achieved results so grand. From 
that day to this we hear no more of punishment in Eng- 
land except for crime. Englishmen no longer pine in foul 
dungeons, or die in God's free air at the cruel stake, for 
fidelity to religious convictions. Instruments of torture 
now exist only in museums, as relics of a bygone age, 
exciting the wonder of the beholder, that any age, and 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 15 



226 NASSAU AND STUART 

above all any Christian age, could have been so barbarous. 
The interval of two months between the flight of James 
and the coronation of the new sovereigns is known as the 
Interregnum. 

WILLIAM III., 1689 TO 1702 — 13 YEARS. NASSAU 
MARY II., 1689 TO 1694 — 6 YEARS. STUART 

The Grand Alliance. — The elevation of William to the 
English throne was a serious blow to Louis, King of 
France. Besides enabling William to bring into the 
contest with Louis the fleets and armies of England, it 
largely increased his power and influence on the conti- 
nent. He became at once the acknowledged head of 
the opposition to French aggression. Louis's revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, had enabled William to 
bring about a coalition of the Protestant princes of Ger- 
many. The recent and wanton ravages of the French 
armies in the Palatinate now enabled him to bring into the 
alliance the Catholic princes also. 1 The courts of Spain 
and Austria, though reluctant to join an alliance of 
Protestant powers against a Catholic king, were forced to 
do so by considerations of self-interest, the former to make 
more secure the possession of the Spanish Netherlands 
against the ambitious schemes of the French monarch, 
and the latter to win Protestant support for the claims of 
the House of Austria to the Spanish succession. France, 
without an ally in Europe, was thus compelled to face 

1 The "Treaty of Westphalia," terminating the " Thirty Years' War," in 1648, 
had left Germany, already divided by the Reformation, a loose confederation of 
petty, independent states, united in times of common danger by a sense of indi- 
vidual weakness, but separated, in times of peace, by differences in religion. 



WILLIAM AND MARY 227 

a coalition comprising England, Holland, Germany, and 
Spain. An English brigade was sent at once to the aid of 
the allies, but William himself was detained in England 
by the unsettled condition of the government, and espe- 
cially by the critical state of affairs in Ireland. 

Rebellion in Ireland. — Tyrconnel had accomplished his 
mission in Ireland, bringing it completely under Catholic 
rule. The Irish people, seeing at last an opportunity of 
throwing off the English yoke and recovering their lands, 
rose in arms. In the south, the panic-stricken English 
abandoned their homes and fled from the country. In the 
north, they gathered within the walls of Enniskillen and 
Londonderry. Backed by fifty thousand Irish soldiers, 
Tyrconnel boldly raised the standard of the Stuarts. 
James himself arrived in Ireland with a fleet and army 
furnished by the French king. Londonderry sustained 
a siege of one hundred and five days, when an English 
ship broke through the boom stretched across the river 
Foyle and brought relief to the starving inhabitants. The 
same day a sally was made by the garrison of Enniskillen 
and the besiegers were beaten off. 

Shortly after this William landed at Carrickfergus with 
an ample force, and took up his line of march for Dublin. 
He found the army of James strongly posted behind the 
river Boyne. Crossing this river on the 12th of July, 
1690, in the face of the foe, William gained a complete 
victory. James embarked in haste for France. " Change 
kings with us and we will fight you again," said an Irish 
officer to an Englishman who taunted him with the panic 
of the Boyne. William, after an unsuccessful attempt to 
capture Limerick, leaving the further prosecution of the 



228 NASSAU AND STUART 

war to his deputies, returned to England and soon joined 
his allies on the continent, over whom the French armies 
had gained victory after victory. 

Peace of Ryswick. — Flushed with success, Louis was 
tempted, after William left for Holland, in 1692, to pre- 
pare an expedition for the invasion of England. But his 
fleet was completely overthrown off Cape La Hogue by 
a Dutch and English squadron, and all danger of invasion 
passed away. The victory of La Hogue and the presence 
of William on the continent inspired the allied armies 
with fresh courage. Although the war lingered for 
several years with varying success, Louis, conscious at 
last that he had completely exhausted the resources of 
his people, and, in the language of Fenelon, " had made 
France a vast hospital," consented, in 1697, to the un- 
favorable Treaty of Ryswick. He surrendered all his 
conquests except Alsace, recognized William as King of 
England, and abandoned the cause of James II. This 
war, under the name of " King William's War," had 
spread to the English and French colonies in America. 
A feeble attempt on the part of the English to take 
Quebec, and murderous raids among the New England 
settlements by hostile Indians, were the only events worthy 
of mention. 

The Bill of Rights, A.D. 1689. — Although associated 
with William in the government, Mary had nothing to do 
with its administration. She died in 1694, universally 
esteemed for her many virtues. William survived her 
seven years. This reign was of great political importance 
to England. William's coming had been preceded by a 
declaration of his purpose to uphold the liberties of the 



WILLIAM AND MARY 22Q 

country. During the first year he gave his signature to 
the Bill of Rights, second in importance only to the Great 
Charter itself. This Bill made standing armies in times of 
peace, and levies of money without consent of Parliament, 
unlawful ; guaranteed the right of petition, the frequent 
assembling of Parliament, and freedom of debate ; and 
forbade interference with the laws on the part of king. 

Other statutes established freedom of the press and 
toleration for Protestant sects ; secured to persons accused 
of crime the right of counsel and a copy of the charges, 
and to those condemned, protection from excessive fines 
and cruel and unusual punishments. By the Triennial Bill 
no Parliament could sit more than three years. The Act 
of Settlement excluded Catholics forever from the throne, 
making Anne, second daughter of James, the prospective 
heir, to be succeeded, at her death without heirs, by Prin- 
cess Sophia, who had married the Elector of Hanover. 

The Constitution of England. — William's reign marks 
an era in constitutional government in England, not only 
because it gave birth to new laws in the interests of liberty, 
but because it gave vitality to laws that were old. Before 
William's time there were charters and statutes enough, 
could they have been executed, to have made the English 
people free ; but neither was public sentiment so educated 
and expressed, nor was the royal prerogative so limited and 
defined, as to make it impossible for a tyrant still to rule. 
During William's reign the rights of the people and the 
prerogatives of the crown were clearly defined. Now 
sovereign and subject alike bow before the majesty of the 
law. 

One principle was established in the reign of William 



230 NASSAU AND STUART 

that has made popular government in England secure : the 
principle that the ministers of the crown must be in har- 
mony with the House of Commons. If in any important 
matter, or one in which the opposing parties are at issue, 
the House refuses by its vote to sustain the policy of the 
ministers, these ministers at once retire, and their places 
are filled by men of the opposite party. The House of 
Commons can, therefore, dictate the policy to be pursued 
by the government, and is the chief ruling power. 

There is a peculiar and interesting fact in connection 
with the English Constitution. It is comprehended in no 
single enactment, nor in the enactments of any single 
reign. It is composed of all the great charters and stat- 
utes that have been enacted from time to time since the 
reign of John, with such customs and precedents as have 
the sanction of long usage. Although it lacks the individ- 
uality of our own Constitution, yet as the slow and steady 
growth of ages, as the product of the wisdom and patriot- 
ism of the best English minds, standing as it does the tests 
of time and an advancing civilization, it commands our rev- 
erence and our admiration. Indeed, our own Constitution 
is, in an important sense, but a collection and epitome of 
the various charters of freedom that lie scattered all along 
the pathway of English history. 

The common phrase "Mother Country" is significant, 
not only as indicating the English origin of most of our 
people and our early colonial governments, but also the 
English origin of our liberties and our laws. Nearly all 
those great principles of government which we hold so 
dear were conceived in English hearts and wrought out 
by English hands. The inalienable rights of man, life, 



WILLIAM AND MARY 23 1 

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, dawned in Magna 
Charta long before they shone full-orbed in the Declaration 
of Independence. 

The Second Grand Alliance. — The Peace of Ryswick 
had been hastened by the consciousness, on the part of 
the principal actors, that the settlement of a new question 
of vital importance to the powers of Europe was soon to 
be forced upon them, the question of the succession to the 
Spanish throne. The death of the present king, Charles 
II., was near at hand. With him would end the Austrian 
line of princes that had ruled over Spain for nearly two 
hundred years. The leading powers, including France, 
determined on a partition of the Spanish empire at the 
death of Charles, agreeing to recognize Archduke Charles 
of Austria as heir presumptive to the Spanish throne. 
King Charles, indignant at the proposed partition, be- 
queathed his whole empire to Philip of Anjou, grandson 
of Louis XIV. Charles died in 1700, and Philip unop- 
posed took possession of his inheritance. The exultant 
Louis, disregarding the treaty of partition of which he was 
one of the signers, accepted the will of Charles. Acting 
in the name of his grandson, he garrisoned the Spanish 
Netherlands with French troops, and returned a haughty 
refusal to William's demand for their withdrawal. England 
and Holland prepared for war. At this juncture James 

II. died in France, and Louis publicly acknowledged the 
son of James as King of England, under the title of James 

III. England had never been in greater peril from a for- 
eign power since the days of the Armada, for the elevation 
of Philip had placed the Spanish empire on the side of 
England's foes. " The Pyrenees exist no longer," said 



232 NASSAU AND STUART 

Louis, as his grandson went to take' the Spanish crown. 
The soul of William rose to the emergency. With 
matchless skill and energy he brought to a successful 
issue the last great work of his life, the formation of a 
Grand Alliance, embracing England, Holland, Germany, 
Sweden, and Denmark, pledged to oppose the ambitious 
schemes of the French monarch, and to support the claims 
of Archduke Charles of Austria to the Spanish throne. 

Death and Character of William. — But William did not 
live to prosecute the war he had planned. An accident, 
caused by the stumbling of his horse as he rode to Hamp- 
ton Court, terminated fatally on the 8th of March, 1702. 
He had long been slowly sinking under the ravages of 
disease. Although his face was marked with the lines of 
suffering, and his frail form bowed with care, his eagle 
eye and firmly compressed lips showed to the last the fiery 
soul within. Trained in the school of adversity (for the 
House of Orange had lain prostrate during his early 
youth), he had learned to be watchful of public events, 
and reserved in the expression of his opinions. His family 
being restored to power just as he was entering manhood, 
William brought to the public service wisdom and pru- 
dence beyond his years. His genius was best displayed 
in great emergencies. He was never so cool as in the 
midst of the conflict, and never so dangerous as after a 
defeat. Owing to his silent, unsocial habits, and his 
manifest partiality for his own countrymen, he was per- 
sonally unpopular during his lifetime. But his patience, 
constancy, and patriotism, and, above all, the wisdom of 
his far-seeing policy, securing to the English people pros- 
perity at home and influence abroad unknown since the 



ANNE 233 

times of Cromwell, have made William of Orange an 
honored name in every English household. At William's 
death Anne was immediately proclaimed Queen of Eng- 
land, in accordance with the Act of Settlement. 

ANNE, 1702 TO 1714 — 12 YEARS. STUART 

The War of the Spanish Succession. — The death of 
William created no little consternation among the nations 
composing the " Grand Alliance." And consequently the 
announcement, made from the throne shortly after Anne's 
accession, that the policy of William would be continued 
by the new government, was hailed with general delight. 
The Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene were placed 
at the head of the allied armies. The war that now arose, 
called in Europe the " War of the Spanish Succession," 
and in America " Queen Anne's War," lasted till the year 
171 3. During its progress four great victories were gained 
over the French, at Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and 
Malplaquet. France, humbled and exhausted, was com- 
pelled to sue for peace. By a treaty signed at Utrecht, 
in 1 71 3, while Philip was recognized as King of Spain, his 
possessions on the continent were divided among the allied 
powers. Louis also consented to the formal cession of 
Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Gibraltar to England, 
recognized Anne as Queen of England, and again aban- 
doned the cause of the Stuarts. This war in America 
had been marked by the renewal of Indian barbarities, 
especially in Massachusetts. Plans were in progress for 
the sailing of a fleet against Quebec, but they were brought 
to a sudden termination by the announcement of peace. 



234 HOUSE OF STUART 

Marlborough. — For several years,, party strife in Eng- 
land had been growing more and more bitter, the Whigs 
favoring, and the Tories opposing, the war. Its long 
continuance, the frightful losses attending its fiercely con- 
tested battles, and the rapid increase of the national debt, 
had made it, toward the last, exceedingly unpopular. 
The Whig ministers were compelled to yield their places 
to Tories. Marlborough, who had allied himself with the 
Whigs, lost favor with the queen, who was Tory at heart, 
and, at the close of the war, was dismissed from the public 
service, with charges of peculation and mismanagement. 
His wife, the famous Duchess of Marlborough, who had 
exercised almost unbounded influence over the queen from 
the day of her accession, also fell into disfavor, and was 
dismissed from all the offices which she held about the 
royal person. Marlborough retired from England in 
disgust. This remarkable man deserves a moment's 
notice. He was handsome in person and of polished 
address, skilled in diplomacy, and confessedly the first 
general of the age. It is said that he never lost a battle, 
nor failed in the attempt to take a town, during his whole 
military career. His serenity under all circumstances was 
something marvelous. He went as calmly into battle as to 
a parade, passed unmoved amidst the most terrible scenes 
of carnage and suffering, exhibited no fear at the presence 
of danger, and showed no elation even in the hour of 
victory. But there was another and a darker side to his 
character. He was guilty of habitual meanness and dis- 
honesty, and bore exposure with little apparent shame. 
He had been a traitor to James, being among the first 
to join the league against him, and then a traitor to 



ANNE 235 

William, having enlisted warmly in a scheme for the res- 
toration of the Stuarts, not long after the accession of 
William. His master passion was love of money. He 
stooped to the most unscrupulous methods in acquiring 
it, and managed, while in office, to amass an immense 
fortune. Marlborough stands a marked example of 
mingled greatness and littleness. 

Constitutional Union of England and Scotland. — In the 
midst of the war, in the year 1707, England and Scotland 
were made, in all respects, one kingdom, under the title of 
Great Britain, their parliaments being united, as their 
crowns had been a little more than a century before. By 
the Act of Union, Scotland was to be placed on a perfect 
equality with England in matters of trade, the courts 
of Justice were to remain unchanged, and the Church of 
Scotland was to be maintained, as already established by 
law. Sixteen Scotch peers were admitted to the House of 
Lords, and forty-five members to the House of Commons. 
Although this union was bitterly opposed by the Scotch 
people, it has contributed immensely to their prosperity. 
Little fishing hamlets have grown into great commercial 
cities, manufactures have sprung up and thrived, and, 
to-day, in some departments of industry, Scotland stands 
among the foremost nations. The reign of Anne was 
distinguished for its intellectual greatness, contesting with 
that of Elizabeth the right to be called the " Augustan 
Age of English Literature." It is radiant with the genius 
of such men as Pope, Steele, Swift, and Addison. 

Death of Good Queen Anne. — Queen Anne died, in 1714, 
of an attack of apoplexy. Her people kindly remem- 
bered her as "Good Queen Anne." She was not attract- 



236 HOUSE OF STUART 

ive in person, and possessed but moderate ability. If, 
like Elizabeth, she made an unwise choice of personal 
favorites, and weakly surrendered herself to their influ- 
ence, like Elizabeth, too, she had the good sense to put 
able men at the head of the government. After the 
Duchess of Marlborough (who was a Whig) had lost favor 
with the queen, the latter fell under the influence of Mrs. 
Masham, one of her attendants. Anne's husband was 
Prince George of Denmark ; they had nineteen children, all 
of whom died in infancy, or early youth. Domestic cares 
and sorrows make up the burden of Anne's twelve years of 
rule. Prince George, though husband to the queen, had 
little to do with the government of England. That his 
abilities were limited may be gathered from the following 
sarcasm of the Merry Monarch : " I have tried him drunk 
and sober, and can find nothing in him." In accordance 
with the " Act of Settlement," Anne was succeeded by 
George, Elector of Hanover, son of Sophia, who was 
a granddaughter of James I. 



CHAPTER X 
House of Brunswick or Hanover 



GEORGE I. 
GEORGE II. 
GEORGE III. 



GEORGE IV. 
WILLIAM IV. 
VICTORIA. 



GEORGE I., 1714 TO 1727 — 13 YEARS 

The Jacobites. — George I. was thoroughly German in 
his tastes and habits, as well as birth and speech. He 
manifested little interest in British affairs, passing most of 
his time in his German dominion. This Thackeray has 
pronounced fortunate for the British people, since they 
were left the more free to confirm their newly acquired 
liberties. The adherents of the exiled Stuarts, called 
Jacobites, from Jacobus, Latin for James, had been very 
busy all through the reign of William, plotting his over- 
throw, usually in league with Louis XIV. of France. 
Anne, being a Stuart and a Tory, was undisturbed by 
them, but during the latter part of her reign there was 
a deep-laid plot to place on the throne, at her death, the 
son of James II. This plot was defeated through the 
vigilance of the Whigs, and the plotters were forced into 
exile or brought to trial and punishment. The Jacobites 
were sufficiently active during the reign of George I. to 
keep the latter in a state of perpetual alarm, but the 

237 



238 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

decease of Louis, their most powerful friend, was a death- 
blow to their prospects. 

The Pretender. — In 171 5 James Francis Stuart, son of 
James II., and called the Pretender, caused his standard 
to be raised in Scotland, under the Earl of Mar. Nothing 
came of the attempt but sorrow and suffering to the de- 
luded Highlanders who had rallied to his support. Mar 
escaped to France in company with the Pretender. 

Two years later, Charles XII. of Sweden, having a per- 
sonal quarrel with King George about the ownership of 
certain German territory, planned an invasion of Scotland 
in the interests of the Pretender, but the sudden death of 
the warlike Swede, while besieging a castle in Norway, 
brought this scheme to a sudden termination. 

Another attempt was made in 1719, after Spain, at- 
tempting to recover the territory of which she had been 
despoiled, had provoked a quadruple alliance of Great 
Britain, France, Germany, and Holland, pledged to oppose 
her scheme of recovery. Her fleet being almost annihi- 
lated by a British squadron, off the coast of Sicily, King 
Philip V., in retaliation, planned an invasion of Great 
Britain, and a rising of the Jacobites in favor of the Pre- 
tender. The Spanish fleet was dispersed by a storm, and 
this scheme, too, came to naught. 

The South Sea Scheme. — One thing of much interest re- 
mains to be noticed, the South Sea Scheme. The expen- 
sive wars of King William had made necessary a great 
national debt, amounting, at this time, to ^53,000,000. The 
offer of the South Sea Company to assume the entire debt, 
and lend money to the government at the low rate of four 
per cent, a year, besides paying a bonus of .£7,000,000, 



GEORGE I 239 

in consideration of the sole right of trade to the South 
Seas, was accepted by the government. The plans of the 
company required an immense outlay. Not having suffi- 
cient capital for so gigantic an enterprise, the company is- 
sued an indefinite amount of South Sea stock, promising 
large dividends to all who would invest. The well-known 
annual return of the galleons of Spain laden with the gold, 
silver, and precious stones from South America, and the 
glowing accounts of voyagers to the distant Pacific, con- 
cerning the tropical wealth of its myriad islands, led to the 
most extravagant notions of the value of the South Sea 
trade. 

In addition to this, the South Sea Company had the vir- 
tual indorsement of the government. Its stock sold read- 
ily, and the price went up until shares worth a hundred 
pounds sold for a thousand. The excitement became in- 
tense and increased to a frenzy. All day long, eager 
throngs crowded around the counters of the company. The 
hard-earned savings of the poor, as well as the superfluous 
wealth of the rich, were swallowed up in the all-devouring 
Maelstrom. Other companies 1 sprang up for absurd and 
even impossible objects, finding eager victims, so prevalent 
was the insane spirit of speculation. It is estimated that 
their entire stock would amount to five hundred million 
pounds sterling, twice the value, at that time, of all the 
land in England. The South Sea Company, by an Act of 

1 There were companies " to fish for wrecks on the Irish coast," " to extract sil- 
ver from lead," " to import asses from Spain," " for a wheel for perpetual motion," 
" for an undertaking that shall in due time be revealed," &c, &c. All these compa- 
nies found willing victims. As if the companies just mentioned were not a suffi- 
ciently palpable burlesque on the prevailing mania for speculation, a company 
was announced " for the invention of melting down sawdust and chips, and casting 
them into clean deal boards without cracks or knots." 



240 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

Parliament, secured the suppression .of all its unlicensed 
rivals. Public confidence in speculative schemes was 
shaken. South Sea stock shared in the general distrust, 
and came into the market in increasing quantities ; the 
price went down ; a panic ensued ; and the bubble burst, 
causing widespread ruin and dismay. 

The Septennial Act. — A single constitutional change 
was made during this reign. The Triennial Act had 
limited the duration of any Parliament to three years, but 
the frequent occurrence of elections kept the country in 
a state of constant turmoil, and the Septennial Act was 
passed, lengthening the possible duration to seven years. 
George I. was stricken with apoplexy while traveling in 
Hanover, and died in his carriage. He left one son, who 
succeeded him with the title George II. 



GEORGE II., 1727 TO 1760 — 33 YEARS 

Robert Walpole. — Robert Walpole was Prime Minister 
of Great Britain during the last six years of the reign of 
George I., and he continued, during the first fifteen 
years of the reign of George II., to guide the affairs of 
state. He first came into prominence at the time of 
the South Sea excitement, having from the first warned 
his countrymen against the delusive "dream." But it 
was in the midst of the dismay that followed the awak- 
ing that Walpole displayed his matchless skill as a finan- 
cier, suggesting plans to equalize the losses, and so to 
alleviate the general distress. The chief merits of his 
policy were its firm adherence to peace, and the encour- 
agement it gave to industry. Its grand results were an 



GEORGE II 24I 

unprecedented development of the national resources, and 
the reestablishment of the public credit. The English 
people, being no longer distracted by questions of re- 
ligion and liberty at home, or war abroad, directed their 
energies, as never before, to the arts of peace. A new 
interest was awakened in commerce, and English mer- 
chant ships increased in every sea. A new impulse was 
given to manufactures, and great busy towns grew up, 
as if by magic. But Walpole's administration, though 
favorable to the production of material wealth, was de- 
structive to public virtue. He retained power only 
through the indiscriminate practice of bribery. Honors, 
offices, titles, "and gold were unsparingly distributed to 
carry borough elections and control parliamentary votes. 
" Every man has his price," was Walpole's pernicious es- 
timate of human virtue, and the keynote to his policy. 

War with Spain. — The Treaty of Utrecht, in 171 3, 
limited the commerce of Great Britain with Spanish 
America to slaves and the use of a single ship. The 
treaty restriction had never been enforced by the Spanish 
officials, and a lucrative trade had gradually grown up. 
Some time after Philip V. had mounted the Spanish throne, 
the two countries of France and Spain had made a secret 
treaty, afterward called the " Family Compact," France 
engaging to restore Gibraltar to Spain, and Spain to 
break up English trade with South America. Almost 
every ship that arrived from South American waters 
had some tale to tell of search and outrage by Spanish 
cruisers, raising the war feeling among the English peo- 
ple to fever height. Walpole long struggled to maintain 
peace, but in 1739 ne yielded to the pressure, and declared 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 1 6 



242 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

war with Spain. Hearing the bells, that proclaimed the 
popular joy, Walpole is said, with a wise foresight, to 
have remarked, " They may ring their bells now ; before 
long they will be wringing their hands." The war was 
unfortunate, and, as often happens, the man who was 
least responsible was most generally blamed. Walpole 
had to bear the odium of the now unpopular war. But 
its area soon widened. 

War of the Austrian Succession. — At the death of 
Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, his hereditary domin- 
ions, including Austria, Hungary, and some other terri- 
tories, were left to his daughter Maria Theresa. The 
Elector of Bavaria also claimed Austria.. France and 
Spain supported the cause of the Elector ; Great Britain 
and Holland, that of Maria Theresa. This war began in 
1 74 1, and was called, in Europe, the " War of the Austrian 
Succession," in America " King George's War." Its 
feeble conduct on the part of Great Britain, charged to 
the apathy of the great " peace minister," made him so 
unpopular that his majority in the House of Commons 
dwindled to a single vote, forcing him to resign in 1742. 
King George joined the army on the continent, and won, 
at its head, the battle of Dettingen. The war continued 
till 1748, when, by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Maria 
Theresa was left in possession of most of her inheritance. 

The only event of importance that occurred in America 
during this war was the capture of Louisburg, on Cape 
Breton Island, called from its great strength the Gibral- 
tar of America. It was taken by an expedition that 
sailed from Boston in 1745 under the command of Sir 
William Pepperell. Much to the disappointment of the 



GEORGE II 243 

colonists, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle compelled the 
restoration of Louisburg to the French. 

The Young Pretender. — While the war was in progress, 
and the very year that Louisburg was taken, another and 
a last attempt was made by the Stuarts to recover the 
British crown. A grandson of James II., Charles Edward 
Stuart, called the young Pretender, landed on the western 
coast of Scotland with but seven followers. The High- 
land clans were easily roused at the call of a Stuart, and 
the Pretender, gaining a victory at Preston Pans over the 
troops sent to oppose him, soon found himself at the head 
of six thousand men, and marched rapidly on London, 
causing, for a time, the greatest consternation. British 
soldiers were hastily withdrawn from the continent, and 
an ample force soon stood between the Pretender and the 
capital. Scarcely a Jacobite had joined him, nor were 
there any signs of a Jacobite rising, and the disappointed 
prince, after reaching Derby, was forced by the Highland 
chiefs to retreat. 

Culloden. — He was overtaken, in 1746, at Culloden 
Moor, near Inverness, and his army was defeated with 
great slaughter. The Pretender escaped from the battle- 
field only to wander, a hunted fugitive, amidst the wilds 
of Scotland. His romantic adventures and hairbreadth 
escapes remind us of the perilous wanderings of Charles 
II. after the battle of Worcester. With English dra- 
goons patrolling all the roads and guarding every 
pass, and British cruisers closely watching the Scottish 
coast, it seemed impossible for the unfortunate prince to 
escape. For five months he found shelter among the 
rough but devoted Highlanders. At one time he was 



244 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

thrown upon the mercy of a band of robbers, living with 
them in a cave near the coast. But neither Highlander 
nor robber was tempted to betray him by the reward of 
,£30,000, which the King of Great Britain had placed 
upon his head. 

The Last of the Stuarts. — With the departure of the 
Pretender from the shores of Scotland, the Stuarts disap- 
pear forever from the pages of English history. Forced 
from the soil of France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
the Pretender went to Rome, where he eked out a wretched 
existence, and died, in 1788, a miserable death. His 
younger brother Henry, Cardinal of York, the last of the 
Stuarts, died at Rome, some twenty years later. A mon- 
ument erected by Canova, in St. Peter's at Rome, in 18 16, 
bears three empty titles : James III., Charles III., and 
Henry IX. 

The French and Indian War. — The French owned 
Canada and Louisiana and laid claim to the entire Ohio 
and Mississippi valleys by virtue of early explorations by 
La Salle and others. The British occupied the Atlantic 
seaboard from New Brunswick to Florida and claimed 
the country westward to the Pacific, basing their title on 
the discoveries of the Cabots. Both parties therefore 
claimed most of the great Mississippi basin, stretching 
from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. In 1749 
George II. granted a charter to a company to settle the 
Ohio Valley. 

To forestall and prevent its occupation by the British, 
the French planned a chain of forts, running along the 
line of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, purposing thus to 
connect their settlements in Canada and Lower Louisiana. 



GEORGE II 245 

They had already built three of these forts, beginning 
with Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, when the Governor of 
Virginia, in 1753, sent George Washington on a mission 
of inspection and remonstrance. He reported the French 
as firm in their purpose to occupy the disputed territory. 
Washington was sent, the next year, with a military force 
to protect the laborers of the Ohio Company who were 
engaged in building a fort at the junction of the Allegheny 
and Monongahela rivers. Before his arrival, this fort was 
captured and completed by the French, who named it 
Fort Duquesne. Washington, attacked by overwhelming 
numbers, was forced to retreat beyond the Alleghanies. 
France and Great Britain, realizing that the time had now 
come for the struggle for dominion in America, hurried 
forces to their respective colonies ; and thus began, in 
1754, the French and Indian War. 

The Five Important Points. — The French, at the outset, 
occupied five points, against which the efforts of the 
British were mainly directed. Fort Duquesne, standing 
at the headwaters of the Ohio, commanded the Ohio 
Valley ; Fort Niagara controlled the fur trade and the 
navigation of the Great Lakes ; Forts Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point stood right in the great natural highway 
between Canada and New York ; Quebec was the key to 
the possession of Canada ; and Louisburg controlled the 
fisheries, and the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. The 
earlier conflicts were favorable to the French, but the 
appointment of William Pitt at the head of the British 
ministry caused a more vigorous prosecution of the war, 
and the tide soon turned in favor of British arms. Louis- 
burg and Duquesne were taken in 1758, the latter being 



246 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

named Fort Pitt, in honor of the great minister. Ticon- 
deroga, Niagara, and Quebec yielded in 1759. 

The Battle of Quebec. — The capture of Quebec decided 
the war. It was taken by the British under Wolfe, who 
scaled the heights of Abraham, and defeated the French 
under Montcalm, on the plains above. Wolfe and Mont- 
calm both fell mortally wounded, while fighting bravely at 
the head of their forces, and both died willingly, the one 
rejoicing in his country's success, and the other unwilling 
to survive his country's defeat. As Wolfe lay on the 
ground, with his life blood fast ebbing away, an officer 
near him exclaimed, " They run, they run ! " Wolfe raised 
himself on his elbow, and asked, " Who run ? " " The 
enemy, the enemy," was the reply. " God be praised, I 
die happy," murmured the noble patriot, as his great soul 
passed away from earth. Montcalm, when conscious that 
his wound was mortal, asked the surgeon how long he 
could survive. " Perhaps a day, perhaps less," was the 
reply. "So much the better," said the suffering hero, 
" I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." On an 
obelisk erected in the gardens of the government house at 
Quebec, the name of Wolfe was placed upon one side, and 
that of Montcalm upon the other, — a noble tribute of a 
nation grateful to a patriot son and generous to a manly 
foe. 

A Proud Year in British Warfare. — The year 1759 is 
one of the proudest in the annals of British warfare. The 
battle of Quebec, fought on the 1 3th of September, settled 
the question of dominion in America. Five days after 
this battle, Quebec opened its gates to the British army, 
and the following year all Canada came under the British 



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GEORGE II 247 

rule. In the old world — where the war was known as 
the "Seven Years' War" — the French had planned two 
campaigns, the one for the seizure of Hanover, and the 
other for the invasion of England itself. The victory of 
Minden, won August 1, chiefly through the valor of the 
six British regiments in the army of Ferdinand of Bruns- 
wick, forced the French back to the Rhine, and Hanover 
was safe. 

The French fleet designed to aid in the invasion of 
England was blockaded in the harbor of Brest by Admiral 
Hawke. The latter being driven by a storm from the 
coast, the French ventured out, but his sudden return 
forced them to take shelter among the rocks and shoals 
in Quiberon Bay. The pilot on board Hawke's flagship 
remonstrated against the latter's decision to attack the 
French on so dangerous a coast, and in the midst of a 
gale. " You have done your duty in this remonstrance," 
said the brave commander. " Now lay me alongside the 
French Admiral." And there, amid rocks and shoals, in 
the darkness and tempest, the brave mariners of England 
won imperishable honor. The French fleet was destroyed 
or dispersed, and England was saved from all danger of 
invasion. 

The Struggle for Dominion in India. — Hardly less im- 
portant was the struggle between France and Great 
Britain for dominion in India. In 1600, during the reign 
of Elizabeth, a company was chartered for purposes of 
trade with the East Indies. In 1662 Bombay was 
acquired by the marriage of Charles II. with Catherine 
of Braganza. By successive Acts of Parliament, the East 
India Company was vested with the sole government of 



248 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

the English East India possessions. It organized and 
maintained its own army, and established its own courts of 
justice. Its principal stations, at the time of the accession 
of George II., were Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. The 
French, also, had trading stations on the coast, the princi- 
pal one being at Pondicherry. During the " War of the 
Austrian Succession," the French governor conceived the 
idea of expelling the English altogether from the Indian 
peninsula. He allied himself with the native princes, and 
the authority of France was soon established throughout 
most of the Carnatic. Only a single native prince held 
out against the French, and he was closely besieged in his 
last stronghold. In 1751 Robert Clive, a poor clerk in 
the employ of the English Company, having obtained a 
commission, raised a small force of two hundred British 
and three hundred native soldiers, and suddenly surprised 
Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic. With the aid of the 
Mahrattas, warlike tribes inhabiting the mountains, Clive 
defeated the French and their native allies in battle after 
battle, and established the supremacy of the English. 

Plassey. — In 1756 Surajah Dowlah, the Viceroy of 
Bengal, fell suddenly upon Calcutta, making captive its 
entire population. One hundred and forty-six prisoners 
were crowded into a dungeon belonging to the fort, called 
the Black Hole of Calcutta, eighteen feet long by fourteen 
wide, and having only two small windows. All but twenty- 
three were dead when the door was opened the next morn- 
ing. When the news reached Madras, Clive raised a force 
of one thousand British and two thousand natives, and 
pushed rapidly northward toward the viceroy's capital. 
He was met at Plassey, in 1757, by the viceroy himself, 



GEORGE III 



249 



at the head of sixty thousand savage natives, fifteen thou- 
sand of whom were cavalry. But this great host was com- 
pletely overthrown by the brave little army under Clive, 
and the rich and populous district of Bengal was added to 
British India. The war against the French was prose- 
cuted with vigor, and, in six months after the accession of 
George III., the British dominion in India was firmly 
established. 

GEORGE III., 1760 TO 1820 — 60 YEARS 

The Peace of Paris. — The first two kings of the House 
of Hanover were German to the last in taste and feeling, 
and there was little in common between them and their 
English subjects. But George the Third used to boast 
that he was "Briton born," and it was then something to 
be proud of, for Great Britain, under the guidance of the 
"Great Commoner," the elder William Pitt, had taken the 
foremost rank among the nations of Europe. In 1763 
the " Seven Years' War " was formally terminated by the 
"Peace of Paris." Few treaties have made such sweep- 
ing changes as this. France relinquished to Great Britain 
not only the disputed territory in America, east of the 
Mississippi River, but all Canada besides. By another 
treaty she surrendered to Spain the island and the town 
of New Orleans, and all her territory west of the Missis- 
sippi. Of her vast possessions in North America, she 
retained, as fishing stations, only two small islands, St. 
Pierre and Miquelon, lying south of Newfoundland. By 
the same treaty, Spain gave Florida to Great Britain in 
exchange for Havana and the Philippine Islands, which 
Great Britain had taken from her during the war. 



25O HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

The American Revolution 

The Repressive Policy of England. — The policy of the 
mother country toward her American colonies had always 
been a repressive one. Both commerce and manufactures 
had been discouraged by laws confining their trade to 
English ports, and to the use of English ships. This 
policy was inspired, in part, by a purpose to protect home 
industries, and, in part, by a desire to keep the colonies 
in a state of dependence. 

Search Warrants. — With the increase of colonial wealth 
came schemes for a colonial revenue. Duties were laid 
on certain imports, and, as a result, the colonists, without 
calling in question the propriety of such duties, resorted 
to an organized system of smuggling. To correct this 
evil, orders were issued to navy officers on the American 
station " to detain and libel all vessels found violating 
any provision of the Navigation Acts"; and, on the land, 
officers provided with " search warrants " were authorized 
to break into stores, and even private houses if suspected 
of containing smuggled goods, violating a principle long 
dear to the English people, that " Every man's house is 
his castle." 

The Stamp Act. — No direct tax had ever been laid by 
England on America. Such a tax had been suggested as 
early as the ministry of Walpole, but a consciousness of its 
injustice had hitherto deterred English ministers from 
attempting to levy it. In 1765, during the ministry of 
Lord Grenville, a tax was laid by an Act of Parliament 
requiring that stamped paper be used for newspapers, 
pamphlets, and legal documents. This direct tax was 



GEORGE III 251 

held to be justifiable, on the ground of the expense of 
supporting an army to defend the colonies. But the 
colonists denied the right of Parliament to lay the tax, 
and the spirit of opposition was so intense and universal 
that the Stamp Act was repealed the next year ; but the 
repeal was coupled with an affirmation of the right of 
Parliament " to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." 

Boston Port Bill. — After resorting to various devices 
to secure submission on the part of the colonies, even 
sending regiments of soldiers as a menace to the people 
of Boston, the British government, in 1773, laid a trivial 
tax of three pence per pound on tea. But this too failed, 
for with the colonies it was not a question of money, but 
of principle. They had no voice in the deliberations of 
the body that taxed them. "Taxation without representa- 
tion is tyranny," was the principle on which they took 
their stand. New York and Philadelphia sent the un- 
broken chests of tea back to England. In Charleston, 
they were stored in damp cellars, until their contents 
became worthless. At Boston, the cargoes of three ships 
were poured into the bay by men disguised as Mohawks. 
In retaliation, the port of Boston was closed to commerce, 
and the charter of Massachusetts was annulled, by Act of 
Parliament. 

Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. — From this mo- 
ment, the colonies were a unit in the purpose to oppose 
the oppressions of the British government. The public 
mind was rapidly educated to resistance by such dauntless 
patriots as John Hancock, John Adams, Samuel Adams, 
Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin. Delegates from 
twelve colonies met at Philadelphia in September, 1774, 



252 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

forming what is known as the First Continental Congress. 
While expressing their loyalty to the mother country, they 
boldly asserted their rights as colonies. Their petitions 
and protests were slighted by Parliament and spurned 
by the king. The breach rapidly widened, and war be- 
came inevitable. General Gage, commander of the British 
troops in Boston, having learned that military stores 
were being collected at Concord for the use of a colonial 
army, sent a detachment of eight hundred soldiers to 
destroy them. But its march had been preceded by a swift 
messenger, the gallant Paul Revere, who gave notice of 
the coming of the British. The whole country on the 
line of march was aroused, and " minutemen " began to 
muster. A company was drawn up on the village green 
at Lexington when the British force came up. It refused 
to disperse at the order of the British officer, and seven 
men fell dead at the first volley of the British soldiers. 
The latter then marched on to Concord, and succeeded 
in destroying some of the stores, when the gathering of 
" minutemen " from all quarters compelled them to re- 
treat. But retreat was more dangerous than battle. All 
along its line, rocks and trees and walls concealed the 
undisciplined, but now determined, colonists, whose unerr- 
ing bullets constantly thinned the British ranks. Rein- 
forcements alone saved the latter from annihilation. 

The battle of Lexington, fought on the 19th of April, 
1775, was the signal to all the colonies that the war had 
actually begun. Volunteers came pouring in from all 
parts of New England. In a few days after this battle 
sixteen thousand " minutemen " were gathered in the en- 
virons of Boston. 



GEORGE III 253 

The Declaration of Independence. — The Second Con- 
tinental Congress assembled at Philadelphia in May, 1775. 
Measures were taken to raise and maintain an army, of 
which George Washington was elected commander in 
chief. But the most important work of this Congress 
was the passage, on the 4th of July, 1776, of a Declara- 
tion of Independence. Hitherto, the colonies had peti- 
tioned, respectfully but earnestly, for a redress of 
grievances ; now, as a sovereign people, they boldly 
declared, and prepared to maintain, complete independ- 
ence. 

It was an unequal contest. A few weak and scattered 
colonies were opposed to the most powerful empire in the 
world. In the field, an untaught militia, scantily supplied 
with munitions of war, and often destitute of food and 
clothing, were pitted against well-trained and well-fur- 
nished veterans. But inspired by the example of Wash- 
ington, their noble commander, the patriot soldiers endured 
privations without complaint, suffered defeat without de- 
spair, and patiently learned the art of war from its practice. 

The earlier events of the war were unfavorable to the 
Americans. Their gallant stand at Bunker Hill, and 
the successful siege of Boston, while giving them con- 
fidence in themselves, weighed little on the issue, com- 
pared with the defeats of Long Island and White Plains, 
and the forced retreat of Washington through New Jersey 
an,d across the Delaware. The prospect that had looked 
so gloomy during the year 1776, brightened a little at its 
close, with a brilliant success at Trenton, and with another, 
in the early part of 1777, at Princeton. The crisis of the 
war was reached in the latter part of the year 1777. 



254 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

Surrender of Burgoyne and Alliance with France. — The 

British had planned two campaigns, which, if successful, 
they confidently believed, would bring the colonies to 
terms. One of these had for its object the capture of 
Philadelphia, then the colonial capital, and the other, the 
isolation of New England from the rest of the country. 
The first, though successful, proved to be of no advantage 
to the British. Washington, beaten at Brandywine and 
Germantown, was compelled to yield the capital to Howe. 
Congress removed to York. The second was disastrous to 
the British. General Burgoyne had organized, in Canada, 
a grand expedition composed of ten thousand well-armed 
and well-trained men. He moved up Lake Champlain 
and along the line of the Hudson, capturing forts and 
driving the Americans before him. Checked at Bemis's 
Heights, he was surrounded at Saratoga, and compelled, 
October 17, to surrender his whole force to General 
Gates. The effect of this signal success of the Americans 
was marked both at home and abroad. It was, in fact, 
the turning point in the war. The Americans took new 
courage. Foreign nations were inspired with increased 
respect for a people struggling so bravely against such 
fearful odds. France had watched the course of the con- 
test with keenest interest. Though animated by the 
bitterest hatred of England, and anxious for the success 
of the colonies, she had been unwilling to ally herself with 
an uncertain cause. After Saratoga, she hastened to 
acknowledge the independence of the colonies, and to 
make with them a treaty of alliance. She sent a fleet 
and an army, at once, to their assistance. Spain and 
Holland acknowledged their independence a little later. 



GEORGE III 255 

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. — Not less marked was 
the effect of the surrender of Burgoyne on the English 
people. Public sentiment grew strong against the war. 
Some of the ablest English statesmen urged an immediate 
peace. A motion was made in Parliament by the Duke 
of Richmond, to acknowledge the independence of 
America and withdraw British soldiers from American 
soil. This brought William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, once 
more, and for the last time, into the House of Lords. 
Leaning on his crutches, with his limbs swathed in band- 
ages, pale and emaciated, but with faculties apparently 
undimmed, the great orator denounced, with the impas- 
sioned eloquence of which he was still master, the propo- 
sition to yield up one of the fairest possessions of the 
British empire, as he said, at the dictation of France. 
Attempting to speak again in reply to the duke, he fell 
back in a swoon and was borne away to die. Pitt had 
opposed the scheme of taxation from the outset, and he 
had resisted, step by step, the policy of coercion which 
had been adopted. Illness had forced him to retire from 
office in 1768, but he had not ceased, in his retirement, to 
utter his solemn warnings to the government and to the 
nation. On occasions of importance, though ill, he had 
been brought into the House of Lords, in which his earl- 
dom entitled him to a seat, to participate in its deliber- 
ations. Pitt was the friend of America because he was 
the friend of justice, but he was an Englishman and a 
patriot, and his soul revolted at the thought of the dis- 
memberment of his country. 

Yorktown, A.D. 1781. — It was owing to the obstinacy 
of King George that the motion of Richmond did not 



256 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

prevail. Though the war lingered for several years, 
chiefly in the south, the final issue was never doubtful 
after the success at Saratoga. Its closing scene was laid 
at Yorktown, in Virginia. Lord Cornwallis, hemmed in 
on one side by an ample force of French and Americans 
under Washington, and on the other by a French fleet 
under Count de Grasse, was compelled, on the 19th of 
October, 1781, to surrender. 

Peace of Paris. — Though virtually ended in America, 
the war still continued among the European combatants. 
Great Britain gained repeated victories on the sea. The 
most interesting event was the heroic defense of Gibraltar 
by General Elliot, against the combined forces and fleets 
of France and Spain, through a siege of three years and 
seven months. September 3, 1783, articles of peace 
were formally signed at Paris, and the United States of 
America took her place, unchallenged, in the great family 
of nations. 

The French Revolution and Napoleon 

The Despotic Rule of Louis XIV. — Louis XIV. was a 
superb monarch. His court was as magnificent and his 
rule as absolute as those of an Eastern despot. Louis 
uttered no idle boast when he once said, " I am the state," 
for all the powers of the state were centered in his single 
person. The French nobles, though slaves to the king, 
were tyrants to their tenants, grinding them with taxation, 
from which they were themselves almost wholly exempt. 
Louis's system of government was a feudalism as oppress- 
ive to the poor as that of the Middle Ages. With him 
passed away much of the regal splendor that had dazzled, 



GEORGE III 257 

and the personal power that had awed, the people of 
France. But the worst features of his system, its despo- 
tism, extortion, and extravagance, remained under his 
successor. 

The Corrupt Rule of Louis XV. — Louis XV. surpassed 
all his predecessors in the vileness of his private life, and 
in his wanton waste of the public money. Evidences of 
discontent among the suffering people became more and 
more apparent. The king plainly foresaw a coming 
storm, but he took no means to avert its calamities from 
his people, or from his successors on the throne. He was 
solicitous only for his own safety. " Things will last my 
day," was his monstrous speech on one occasion. "After 
us the deluge," replied the royal favorite, Madame Pompa- 
dour, and the reckless pair only plunged the deeper into 
every species of excess. 

The Inefficient Rule of Louis XVI. — Louis XVI. was 
a mild and pious king, but he had neither the ability nor 
the vigor to cope with the perils that gathered darkly 
around the throne which he inherited. 

The French Skeptics. — The popular discontent had 
been intensified by a class of literary men who had flour- 
ished in the preceding reign, among whom Voltaire and 
Rousseau had stood foremost. With the fiery eloquence 
peculiar to French genius, they had disseminated the 
most extreme views on subjects that profoundly agitated 
the public mind, such as class privileges, unequal taxation, 
and popular rights, kindling in the excitable bosoms of the 
French people a burning love of liberty, and a bitter 
hatred of oppression. But they also taught infidelity to 
religion, and contempt for established order, striking at 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 1 7 



258 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

the very foundations of society itself. The seed sown by 
French skeptics at this period took deep root, and rip- 
ened, before long, into bitter fruit. 

The Influence of the American Revolution. — One other 
influence operating on the French mind remains to be 
mentioned, and one of no light import at this period. The 
French soldiers had returned from America, at the close 
of the Revolutionary War, full of the republican spirit, 
which they readily communicated to their friends and 
neighbors, making them familiar with the idea of revolu- 
tion, and especially with the merits of a democratic form 
of government. 

The States-General. — Louis XVI., conscious that the 
public credit was gone, and that a crisis in the finances 
of the government was at hand, in 1789 summoned the 
States-General, a body composed of nobles, clergy, and 
commons, that met only in times of national peril. Its 
last session was in 16 14, in the time of Richelieu. But 
the meeting of the States-General only precipitated the 
storm which it was designed to avert. The commons, or 
Third Estate, as they were called, ignoring nobles and 
clergy, declared themselves to be the supreme authority 
of the state. 

The Revolution sweeps away Church and State. — This 
action of the commons was revolution, whose bloodless 
beginning in legislative halls was but the first breath of 
the coming storm, that was soon to rock, to their very 
base, all the institutions of church and state, and finally 
to involve them in complete and indiscriminate ruin. 

A Paris mob destroyed the Bastile, the hated prison in 
whose dungeons had been silenced, for so many genera- 



GEORGE III 259 

tions, the murmurs of the people. The blameless king 
and his accomplished queen, Marie Antoinette, subjected 
to one indignity after another, at last perished under the 
guillotine. The monarchy was overthrown, and a repub- 
lic was erected in its stead. The Christian Sabbath was 
abolished, and every tenth day was made a day of secular 
rest. A solemn vote decreed that there was no God, and 
Reason was enthroned as the object of supreme worship. 
Over the entrance to every cemetery in the land was 
written, " Death is an eternal sleep." 

The Reign of Terror. — One political party followed 
another in power, each more violent than the preceding, 
until, under the National Convention, with Robespierre at 
the head, the climax was reached in the inauguration of 
a " Reign of Terror." The guillotine was glutted with 
victims, and the best blood of France flowed like water. 
It is computed that a million persons perished during this 
mad carnival of blood. The excesses of the republic at 
home, and its efforts to arouse the revolutionary spirit 
abroad, soon raised against it a coalition of the most 
powerful nations of Europe. 

Napoleon Bonaparte. — The stirring events of the times 
brought to the surface, about the year 1795, the most 
extraordinary man of modern times. Napoleon Bonaparte 
was born on the island of Corsica, a French dependency in 
the Mediterranean. He was educated at a military school 
in Brienne, a town in France, showing, even in youth, the 
germs of that genius which afterward made him so dis- 
tinguished. His skill and courage at the siege of Toulon, 
and his bold defense of the Directory, the executive branch 
of the government, against the National Guards, in 1795. 



260 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

placed him, at once, at the head of the armies of the 
republic. He returned from his first campaign, in Italy, 
the idol of the French people. His second, in Egypt and 
Syria, in 1 797, designed to establish a French empire, and 
undermine that of Great Britain, in the East, was a com- 
plete failure. Napoleon won the battle of the Pyramids, 
but was repulsed at Acre, while his fleet was annihilated 
by Nelson in the battle of the Nile. 

Leaving his generals to complete the hopeless cam- 
paign, Napoleon returned to France to overthrow the 
Directory, and to become First Consul in 1799, Consul 
for life in 1802, and Emperor in 1804. From the time of 
his election as First Consul in 1799, to his fall in 18 14, 
the history of France, and almost of Europe, is the history 
of Napoleon. Coalition after coalition of the powers of 
Europe sprang into existence, only to be dissolved by his 
diplomacy, or crushed by his power. These coalitions 
were no longer formed for the destruction of the republic 
and the restoration of monarchy, for Napoleon had over- 
thrown the one, and established the other, but they were 
formed against Napoleon himself, who had inspired more 
terror in the hearts of the kings than had even the dread 
specter of Democracy itself. 

Great Britain alone, of all the powers of Europe, re- 
mained, through Napoleon's whole career, undaunted and 
unconquered. Great Britain alone, deserted at times by all 
her allies, stood between Napoleon and universal conquest. 
Said the great soldier, when in 1802 he had gathered one 
hundred thousand trained soldiers at Boulogne, and a vast 
fleet of transports to land them on the shores of England, 
" Let us be masters of the channel for six hours, and we 



GEORGE III 26l 

are masters of the world." But the fleet designed to pro- 
tect the crossing of the transports was swept from the 
channel and blockaded in the harbor of Cadiz by the 
gallant Nelson, and the invasion was not even attempted. 

The French and Spanish fleets, venturing forth from 
Cadiz, were met and annihilated, off Cape Trafalgar, in 
1805. It was on. this occasion that Nelson gave the 
famous order, " England expects every man to do his 
duty," — the grandest sentiment ever signaled from the 
masthead of a flagship on the eve of battle. It was 
Nelson's last order. He was struck, in the very heat of 
the contest, by a musket ball, while standing on the deck 
of his ship, the Victory. Covering his face with his hand- 
kerchief, that the crew might not see who was wounded, 
he was carried below, and died just after victory was 
assured. 

The Struggle on the Spanish Peninsula. — In 1808 began 
the struggle between Great Britain and France for the 
mastery in Spain, the army of the former being under the 
command of Arthur Wellesley, distinguished for his 
services in India, that of the latter under Soult, one of 
the most illustrious of Napoleon's marshals. Victory long 
wavered in the balance, but finally, in the early part of the 
year 18 14, the scale turned in favor of British arms, and 
the last French soldier was driven across the Pyrenees into 
France. For his success in Spain, especially at Talavera, 
1809, Wellesley was rewarded with the title of Duke of 
Wellington. In other parts of the continent, Napoleon 
had generally been victorious, carrying the eagles of 
France into almost every capital. Ulm and Austerlitz, 
Jena and Wagram, were witnesses of his amazing success. 



262 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

The Invasion of Russia. — In 1812, when at the sum- 
mit of his power, Napoleon undertook the invasion of 
Russia. This has been regarded as the turning point in 
his career. After advancing for a period of three months, 
during which several bloody battles were fought, he reached 
Moscow, the ancient capital of the empire, only to see it 
speedily laid in ashes. The rich and beautiful city was 
sacrificed, that the invader might find no shelter. The 
food in all the country around had been destroyed, and 
winter was fast approaching. After waiting more than a 
month, in the vain hope of peace, there was no alternative 
for Napoleon but retreat. The story is a sad one. Thou- 
sands of brave men died at the hands of the wild Cos- 
sacks, clouds of whom hovered around the devoted army, 
day and night, ever on the alert to attack the helpless 
masses, or cut off straggling soldiers. Thousands more 
perished with cold, hunger, and exhaustion, amid the drifting 
snows of winter. Nearly half a million gallant and stalwart 
men began the proud march that was to add Russia to the 
list of Napoleon's conquests. Only thirty thousand wan 
and haggard specters lived to recross the Niemen. 

The Battle of the Nations. — To any but Napoleon, the 
Russian disaster would have been overwhelming. But 
with an energy almost superhuman he gathered up the 
fragments of his armies, made fresh conscriptions, and 
boldly faced a new and still more powerful coalition of his 
foes. The decisive conflict, the " Battle of the Nations," 
occurred at Leipzig, in 18 14, lasting three days, and end- 
ing in the complete discomfiture of the French. A des- 
perate but hopeless struggle on the soil of France deferred, 
but could not prevent, the fall of Paris. 



GEORGE III 263 

Napoleon at Elba. — Napoleon was deposed and ban- 
ished to the island of Elba, over which he was allowed to 
rule with the title of Emperor, and Louis XVIII. was 
placed upon the throne of his ancestors. While a con- 
gress of sovereigns and ministers of the leading powers 
was in session at Vienna, to readjust the disordered affairs 
of Europe, Napoleon, secretly leaving his little empire in 
the Mediterranean, landed on the shores of France, and 
began a triumphant march on the capital. Thousands of 
the old soldiers of the empire flocked to his standard, and 
he soon entered Paris, surrounded by an excited populace, 
whose old, familiar cry, " Long live the Emperor," rent 
the air on every side. Louis XVIII. fled in dismay to the 
frontier. 

Waterloo, A.D. 1815. — The astonished kings at Vienna, 
suddenly startled from their dream of fancied security, 
and conscious that their crowns and kingdoms were once 
more at stake, quickly formed a new coalition. The coun- 
cil chamber was forsaken for the camp, and half a million 
of men, coming from every quarter of the continent of 
Europe, were soon on the march for France. The armies 
of Great Britain and Prussia were first in the field. Napo- 
leon, hoping to crush them in detail before their junction 
with the rest, hastened to Belgium, the great battle ground 
of Europe, where he found himself confronted by the Brit- 
ish under Wellington. On the field of Waterloo, 1 at the 



1 The battle of Waterloo — called by the French St. Jean — was fought on a 
Sunday. All night before, the rain had fallen in torrents ; and when the troops 
rose from their cheerless bivouac among the crushed and muddy rye, a drizzling 
rain still fell. The armies faced each other upon two gentle slopes, near which ran 
the high road to Brussels. The army of Wellington numbered more than 70,000, 
— that of Napoleon about 80,000 men. Between, in a slight hollow, lay the farm- 



264 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

close of a Sabbath day in June, Napoleon's sun once more 
set, never to rise again. His last devoted army, after 
dashing again and again, like ocean billows, against the red 
English squares that stood "like the rocks that encircle 
their native shore," poured, bleeding, back to France. 

Napoleon at St. Helena. — In 18 15, about twenty years 
after his first appearance on the stage of European politics, 
Napoleon Bonaparte was consigned to perpetual captivity 
on the island of St. Helena, in the heart of the Atlantic. 
His career constitutes one of the most thrilling episodes in 
all history. Reverses of fortune are among the most com- 
mon events of human life, but the annals of the past fur- 
nish few instances to compare with that of Napoleon. 
Since few can rise to so dizzy a height of power and glory, 
few can experience so great a fall. What a contrast ! 
Napoleon the emperor, and Napoleon the exile ! Napo- 
leon conquering states and dispensing thrones, at once the 
terror and admiration of a continent, and Napoleon sad, 

houses of Hougomont and La Haye Sainte, round which the bloodiest combats of 
the day took place. The battle began at ten o'clock. Napoleon knew that he was 
a ruined man unless he could pierce and break the red masses that lay between 
him and Brussels. He kept closely to one plan of action, — a storm of shot and 
shell upon the British ranks, and then a rapid rush of lancers and steel-clad cui- 
rassiers. But the British infantry, formed into solid squares, met every charge like 
the rocks that encircle their native shore. Again, and again, and again the baffled 
cavalry of France recoiled with many an empty saddle. This was a terrible game 
to play ; and well might Wellington, when he looked on the squares, growing every 
moment smaller, as soldier after soldier stepped silently into the place of his fallen 
comrade, pray that either night or Bliicher would come. It was seven o'clock in 
the evening before the distant sound of the Prussian cannon was heard. Bliicher 
had outmarched Grouchy, and was hastening to Waterloo. Napoleon then made 
the grandest effort of the day. The Old Guard of France, unconquered veterans 
of Austerlitz and Jena, burst in a furious onset upon the shattered ranks of Britain ; 
but, at one magic word, the British squares dissolved into 'thin red lines,' glittering 
with bayonets, and, with a cheer that rent the smoke cloud hovering about the 
field, swept on to meet the foe. The French columns wavered — broke — fled ; and 
Waterloo was won. — COLLIER. 



GEORGE III 265 

solitary, and forgotten, looking hopelessly out from the 
lonely, barren rock upon the silent, shoreless sea, the 
mighty soul within stirred only with the melancholy mem- 
ory of vanished grandeur! On the 5th of May, 182 1, 
while a hurricane swept with unusual violence across the 
unprotected isle, and the surging billows beat with a 
mournful and monotonous sound upon the shore, the fet- 
tered, restless spirit of the great soldier passed away from 
earth. What a commentary does the career of Napoleon 
furnish, on the instability of worldly things and the eva- 
nescent character of worldly glory ! Resting on any other 
foundation than that of everlasting truth and right, the 
grandest conceptions of the genius of man often prove as 
fleeting and unreal as the "baseless fabric of a dream." 
His gilded creations, however stable they may seem, will 
flash for a few brief hours in the sunlight of hope, and 
then fade with the gathering twilight, and vanish utterly 
away in the quick-coming night. 

Great Britain's Second War with the United States 

Right of Search and Impressment of Seamen. — In the 

midst of the wars with Napoleon, and just as Napoleon 
was getting ready to invade Russia, Great Britain engaged 
in her second war with the United States in defense of the 
"right of search" and of the "impressment of seamen." 
So exhausting were the wars with Napoleon that Britain 
could with difficulty find seamen for her navy. It was 
a settled principle of her government that a person born 
a British subject could never surrender his allegiance to 
his country, no matter in what part of the world he might 



266 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

take up his abode. Acting on this principle, British cap- 
tains boldly searched American ships on the high seas, 
and impressed all British-born seamen found therein. 

This course was unqualifiedly condemned by the United 
States, whose policy it has always been to regard all 
persons of foreign birth living under the protection of 
its flag, who hav.e either been naturalized, or have taken 
any of the legal steps necessary to that end, as American 
citizens, and as such, entitled to the protection of the 
government. The case against Great Britain was aggra- 
vated by the fact that in many instances the impressed 
seamen were of American birth. Above six thousand 
seamen were forcibly taken from American ships and 
compelled to serve on British men-of-war, within the 
period of a few years. 

"Decrees" of Napoleon and "Orders" of the English 
Council. — The war feeling in the United States was 
increased by the "decrees" of Napoleon and the "or- 
ders " of the English Council, declaring, respectively, the 
ports of England and France to be in a state of 
blockade. This was particularly injurious to the United 
States, since, being a neutral power, she was to a con- 
siderable extent engaged to do the carrying trade of 
Europe. Between French and British cruisers, the com- 
merce of the United States was well-nigh swept from the 
seas. Napoleon, in 1811, withdrew the application of the 
" decrees " from the United States, making the war feeling 
asrainst Great Britain all the more intense. Between the 
year 1807 and the declaration of war in 1812, it has been 
computed that one thousand American merchant ships 
were taken by British cruisers. 



GEORGE III 267 

Declaration of War by the United States. — War was 

declared by the United States, June 19, 18 12. It was 
fought chiefly on the sea, the United States gaining many 
signal victories. Privateers, being commissioned in large 
numbers, frequented all the routes of English commerce, 
and gained a rich harvest in the capture of British mer- 
chant ships. Operations on the land were limited to the 
Canadian frontier, and to descents on exposed points along 
the American coast. General Ross, sailing up the Chesa- 
peake, made a sudden raid on the capital of the United 
States, and, with a vandalism that belonged to a bygone 
age, burned to the ground most of the public buildings. 

Battle of New Orleans. — The last battle of the war was 
fought at New Orleans on the 8th of January, 181 5. The 
British under Sir Edward Pakenham were completely 
repulsed by the Americans under General Jackson, Pak- 
enham himself being slain. 

Peace of Ghent. — It was, of course, unknown to both 
commanders, that fifteen days before, on the 24th of 
December, 18 14, peace had been made at Ghent. Al- 
though the treaty of peace left unsettled the questions at 
issue between the two countries, British captains never 
afterward searched American vessels to find British sub- 
jects, and after a time the British government formally 
abandoned the whole doctrine of the "right of search." 

During the greater part of this reign, William Pitt, 
second son of the Earl of Chatham, was at the head of 
the government. 

The Regency. — During the last nine years of his life, 
King George was blind and insane, and the Prince of Wales 
ruled as Prince Regent. Though obstinate and conserva- 



268 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

tive, George III. was much better than the other kings of 
his name. The simple, homely, familiar ways of " Farmer 
George," as he was called, gained him the good will of the 
people, and the great misfortune that clouded his later 
years won their heartfelt sympathy. 

GEORGE IV., 1820 TO 1830 — 10 YEARS 

England after the Napoleonic Wars. — Great Britain 
emerged from the wars with Napoleon the most powerful 
nation in Europe. During this long and desperate strug- 
gle, nearly all the European nations had, at one time and 
another, been drawn or forced to the side of Britain's foes, 
and, in consequence, their fleets had, one after another, 
been swept away by the superior navy of Great Britain, so 
that her supremacy on the sea, first achieved in the reign 
of Elizabeth, was now universally conceded. Isolated 
from the nations of the continent, her own soil had known 
nothing of the desolations that war had brought to theirs. 
Her industries had not only remained undisturbed, while 
theirs had been paralyzed, but they had been forced to an 
unnatural expansion, bringing unexampled prosperity to 
her capitalists. On the other hand, the return of peace 
caused a reaction, that was followed by a crisis in both 
the national finances and the national industries. Manu- 
facturing establishments, stimulated to an overproduction 
during the war, could not at once adapt themselves to the 
new conditions of a state of peace, and they were compelled 
to contract, and in many cases to close operations alto- 
gether. Thousands of operatives in all the manufacturing 
districts were thus thrown out of employment, and, having 



GEORGE IV 269 

laid up nothing during the time of prosperity, were now 
suddenly reduced to want. 

The disbandment of the army and navy forces had 
released multitudes of men, many of whom could not 
find the employment they sought, while more were rest- 
less in spirit and had little taste for the quiet pursuits of 
life. Although the rates for the poor were everywhere 
largely increased, destitution and suffering were every- 
where inevitable. The Napoleonic wars had greatly in- 
creased the public debt, which at their close amounted to 
^800,000,000, and the people were heavily burdened with 
taxation. The necessaries of life had reached exorbitant 
figures during these wars, enriching landowners and large 
dealers, but bearing heavily on the poor. 

The Corn Law. — During the year after the close of the 
Napoleonic wars, the landowners, with a policy as short- 
sighted as it was selfish, secured the passage of a law 
placing such a duty on grain as virtually to prohibit its 
importation. High prices were thus maintained, espe- 
cially on the bread of the poor, after their income had 
greatly diminished or had ceased altogether. Idleness, 
poverty, and suffering produced discontent and incipient 
rebellion, but this only brought upon the unhappy people 
the strong arm of the law, and aggravated the miseries of 
their condition. 

Agitation on the Subject of Reform. — The people attrib- 
uted their distress to bad legislation, and not wholly with- 
out cause, and the remedy, in their minds, was increased 
political power on the part of the masses. Then began 
an agitation on the subject of reform in the laws, never 
known before in England. The active English mind, no 



270 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

longer engrossed with the excitements of foreign war, 
employed itself in questions of domestic policy, and the 
resources of the ministry and statesmen of England were 
taxed to the utmost to meet the social and political prob- 
lems that constantly presented themselves for solution. 
From the passage of the Corn Law, in 181 5, to the present 
time, England has been the arena of an unintermitting 
strife on the subject of reform. Reform has been the 
all-engrossing theme at the fireside and in the cabinet, 
at the hustings and in legislative halls. Reform and 
Anti-Reform have been inscribed on party banners, and 
have been the issues of party politics. The period 
embraced in the reigns of George IV., William IV., and 
Victoria, might well be characterized as the Era of 
Reform. We can here notice only the most important 
matters that have successively agitated the public mind, 
and the leading measures that have been enacted, tending 
to the removal of class and religious distinctions, to the 
equalization of civil and political rights, and especially to 
the amelioration of the condition of the poor and their 
advancement in the scale of being. If the progress of 
reform has been slow, on account of the bitter resistance 
of powerful conservative elements, it has also been sure. 
No essential step in this grand march of the English 
people toward the ideal of all just government, the 
greatest good to the greatest number, has been retraced. 
Temporary checks and defeats have made its ultimate tri- 
umphs all the more complete. 

The Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. — The 
Corporation Act, passed in the reign of Charles II., 
required the officers of corporations or boroughs to con- 



GEORGE IV 271 

form to the rites of the restored Episcopal Church, and 
was specially designed to effect the removal of Puritans, 
who at that time occupied most of the borough offices. 
The Test Act, passed later in the reign of Charles II., 
made the same requirements of civil and military officers, 
with the addition of the Oath of Supremacy, and was 
enacted at a time when it was supposed that Charles was 
scheming to restore Catholicism to England. But the 
perils against which these statutes were designed to 
guard, had, at the time of George IV., long since passed 
away. The state church was firmly established, and 
proscriptive laws on account of religion had not only 
become needless, but were a source of perpetual dis- 
content. After much agitation, in 1828 both these acts 
were repealed in their most odious features. 

The Catholic Emancipation Bill. — But the Catholics had 
disabilities more irksome than those just mentioned. At 
the time of the " Popish Plot," in the reign of Charles II., 
Catholics were made ineligible to Parliament, and, although 
this plot was clearly seen at the time to be a pure fabrica- 
tion, they were not restored to membership, and, for a 
century and a half, had no voice in the counsels of the 
nation. The Irish Catholics labored under peculiar hard- 
ships. In 1 801 the constitutional union of Great Britain 
and Ireland was effected, thirty Irish lords and one hun- 
dred commoners being admitted to the British Parliament. 
This union, though originally designed by Pitt, who was 
Prime Minister, as one of a series of measures to bind 
Great Britain and Ireland more closely together, was not 
only distasteful to the great body of the Irish people, who 
preferred their old independent Parliament, but it drew in 



272 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

its train a new, and, in time, an intolerable grievance. 
Only Protestants could sit as members in the chambers of 
the British Parliament. It is difficult to say which was 
felt to be the greater grievance to Catholic Ireland, to 
have no representation, or to be restricted to a Protestant 
one. The discontent of the Irish people rose to fever 
height, culminating in outbreaks which were trodden out 
in blood. Bill after bill for the relief of Ireland was 
brought into Parliament only to be' voted down. Asso- 
ciations in which almost every Catholic and many Protes- 
tants became enrolled were formed throughout Ireland, 
to secure the repeal of the disabling laws. Daniel O'Con- 
nell, an eloquent Irish barrister, the acknowledged head 
of these associations, was at this time all but supreme in 
his power over the Irish people. In 1827 he was elected 
to Parliament from the county of Clare, but was ineligible 
on account of his religion. The climax to Irish endurance 
was reached when O'Connell was refused the seat to 
which he had been elected, and Parliament soon came 
to see that there was but a choice of alternatives, justice 
to Ireland, or war with a united and determined people. 
A bill was accordingly introduced to admit Catholics to 
Parliament. Even Wellington, long the opponent of 
reform, who had looked calmly on death in many a 
bloody battlefield, shrank from the horrors of a religious 
war in Ireland. Said the Iron Duke, on moving the 
second reading of the bill, " If I could avoid, by any 
sacrifice whatever, even one month of civil war in the 
country to which I am attached, I would sacrifice my life 
to do it." 

In a little more than a month, April 13, 1829, the bill, 



GEORGE IV 273 

having passed both Houses, received the royal signature 
and became law. Roman Catholics were placed on an 
equality with Protestants, except that they remained ineli- 
gible to the throne, the chancellorship, the lord-lieuten- 
ancy of Ireland, and to offices in Protestant universities. 
O'Connell at once took his seat in the House of Commons. 

Navarino A.D. 1827. — In the early part of the reign of 
George IV., the Greeks, who had suffered under Moslem 
rule for more than three centuries, rose in rebellion. The 
sailing of an expedition from Egypt to lay waste the 
Morea, and to carry away its inhabitants into slavery, 
caused a coalition of Great Britain, France, and Russia 
in behalf of the helpless Greeks. The allied fleets, enter- 
ing the harbor of Navarino in the latter part of 1827, 
annihilated the entire Turkish and Egyptian navies. 
Greece was made an independent kingdom, and Otho, 
a Bavarian prince, was placed upon the throne. A touch- 
ing and romantic interest is connected with the struggle 
of the Greeks for independence, on account of its asso- 
ciation with Lord Byron. The unhappy poet devoted his 
fortune and the last efforts of his genius to the cause of 
Greece. On its classic soil, and in its service, he breathed 
his last. 

Character of George IV. — George the Fourth is one of 
the most uninteresting as well as despicable sovereigns 
that ever sat on the English throne. The time had gone 
by when an English king could override the laws, else 
George IV. would have been a tyrant. He threw what 
little influence he possessed against the cause of reform, 
retarding, but not defeating, its progress. He was profli- 
gate in the extreme and spent most of his time in the com- 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 1 8 



274 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

pany of the worthless. His flatterers called him "the first 
gentleman in Europe," a title that rested solely on his 
possession of a well-shaped figure, polished manners, and 
exquisite taste in matters of dress. Through hiS licentious 
habits he had lost the respect of his people, while his 
relentless persecution of his wife had excited their intense 
and lasting dislike. He had married, when Prince of 
Wales, his own cousin, the Princess Caroline of Bruns- 
wick. After submitting to every species of indignity from 
her husband, Caroline returned to her home on the con- 
tinent. After the elevation of George to the throne, a bill 
was introduced into Parliament for the divorce of the 
crownless queen, but so intense was public feeling against 
the king, it was finally allowed to drop. Queen Caroline 
died in about a year, broken down with shame and grief. 
George IV. died in 1830, leaving no heirs, and the throne 
descended to his brother William. 

WILLIAM IV., 1830 TO 1837 — 7 YEARS 

State of Feeling in England at the Accession of William. 

— The brief period of William's reign was one of unprec- 
edented political excitement. The question of reform, 
fairly launched upon the sea of English politics during the 
preceding reign, became the exclusive object of public 
attention. During the first year of William's reign a revo- 
lution broke out in France, and excited grave apprehen- 
sions in England as well as on the continent. The 
French people had caught the spirit that animated the 
English masses, and were calling loudly for reform. The 
French ministry sought to crush this spirit by ordinances 



WILLIAM IV 275 

subverting the constitution of the country and destroying 
the freedom of the press. The exasperated Parisians rose 
at once in arms. For three days were the streets of the 
capital the scene of indescribable confusion and carnage, 
when the government troops were driven from the city, 
and the king, Charles X., was compelled to abdicate the 
throne. Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was appointed 
Lieutenant General of the kingdom. For a while, the 
tricolor, the symbol of French republicanism, floated over 
the city of Paris in place of the white flag of royalty, but 
in the end Louis was made king under a liberal consti- 
tution. A feverish and almost revolutionary spirit was 
kindled among the masses throughout Europe by the rev- 
olution in France. In Brussels, a rising of the people 
terminated in a separation from Holland, and the founding 
of the new kingdom of Belgium. The excitement in Eng- 
land created by this revolution happily found vent in the 
election that was near at hand, which resulted in returning 
a House of Commons overwhelmingly liberal. The con- 
servative Duke of Wellington was forced to yield his 
place as Prime Minister to Earl Grey, who was in sym- 
pathy with the new House. We are now brought to the 
consideration of another of those great statutes that stand 
like milestones in the pathway of English progress, the 
Reform Bill of 1832. 

The Reform Bill of 1832. — One of the crying grievances 
of the English people was inequality of representation in 
Parliament. In early times the kings had designated the 
towns that were to be represented in the lower House. 
They usually selected those most important. Towns were 
occasionally added to the list, sometimes as a matter of 



276 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

justice, and sometimes as a matter of favoritism. There 
was no law or basis of representation. In the course of 
time a great change came over the face of England. The 
growth of manufactures had made new centers of popula- 
tion. Thriving towns and cities, such as Birmingham, 
Leeds, and Sheffield, had sprung up in the wilderness. 
On the other hand, flourishing towns had dwindled into 
mere hamlets, and in some cases had disappeared alto- 
gether. But through all this shifting of the population, 
there had been comparatively few changes in the repre- 
sentation in Parliament. Old Sarum, without a house 
within its limits, continued to send two representatives to 
every Parliament, while Birmingham, a great busy hive of 
industry, remained entirely unrepresented. These "rot- 
ten" or " pocket" boroughs, as the towns were called 
that had representation but little or no constituency, were 
under the control of noblemen, who either selected the 
persons to represent them, or offered the places for sale. 
A Reform Bill was introduced into Parliament early in 

1 83 1, designed to readjust and equalize the system of 
representation. It passed the House of Commons after 
a prolonged discussion, but was defeated in the House 
of Lords. The excitement in England became intense. 
Riots and conflagrations constantly disturbed the peace of 
the kingdom. The conservative Lords, becoming alarmed 
at the temper of the people, which threatened the most 
serious results, followed the example of the liberal Com- 
mons, and passed the Reform Bill at their next session, in 

1832. Fifty-six "pocket" boroughs, having one hundred 
and twelve representatives, were disfranchised, while 
thirty more were allowed each a single representative, 



WILLIAM IV 277 

making a total reduction of one hundred and forty-two 
members. The vacant seats were distributed among 
forty-two large and flourishing towns that had previously 
no representation. The franchise was extended to the 
middle classes, adding half a million voters to the electoral 
body. 

Results of Reform Legislation. — Besides leading to 
immense material benefit to the people, the Reform Bill 
of 1832 conferred on the liberal element a power it had 
never known before. The cause of reform gained a pres- 
tige that made other progressive movements easy and 
rapid. For the first time the manufacturing and general 
business interests had able and adequate representation in 
Parliament. 

Hitherto the landholders had molded legislation to 
meet their peculiar wants. Now measures began to be 
devised and framed into statutes for the development of 
commerce and manufactures, making them, in time, the 
leading interests of the British people. As an illustration 
of the progress made it may be stated that, at the begin- 
ning of the reign of William IV., Great Britain had three 
hundred and fifteen steam vessels, with a tonnage of 33,441. 
At its close she had six hundred steam vessels, with a ton- 
nage of 67,969. At its beginning there was but a single 
railway line of importance on the island. At its close 
all the great manufacturing centers and mining districts 
had railroad facilities for the transportation of goods and 
passengers to the metropolis and leading seaports. 

Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. — The abolition of 
slavery in the colonies was one of the subjects that had 
agitated the public mind. Wilberforce and other philan- 



278 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

thropists had labored for nearly forty years in the cause 
of emancipation. In 1833 a bill was introduced into Par- 
liament, giving freedom to all the slaves in the British 
colonies, and appropriating ^20,000,000 as compensation 
to the planters. It passed without serious opposition, 
removing one of the foulest stains that ever disgraced a 
civilized nation. 

Character of William IV. — William IV. was called the 
" Sailor King," from his early connection with the British 
navy. He was a worthy man and a just and able ruler. 
He was in hearty sympathy with the reform movements 
of the day, and for this reason was held in high esteem 
among the people. The careless, easy, open manners of 
the sailor clung to him to the last, increasing still more his 
popularity among the English masses. He had long been 
afflicted with hay fever. In 1837 his disease assumed a 
more aggravated form, and he sank rapidly under its 
attacks, and died on the 20th of June, in the seventy- 
second year of his age. 

VICTORIA, 1837- 

Accession of Victoria. — Princess Alexandrina Victoria 
was eighteen years old on the 24th of May, 1837, and so 
was of legal age when she came to the throne on the 20th 
of June. The childhood of the princess was spent at 
Kensington Palace, where, under the watchful eye of a 
Christian mother., she was educated for the exalted station 
she was expected to fill. That Victoria as queen has ful- 
filled the promise of her youth, and realized the expecta- 
tions of her people, is best seen in the general peacefulness 



VICTORIA 279 

of her reign, and the unexampled growth and prosperity 
of her empire. 1 The wisdom of her public career and 
the virtues of her private life have won for her the love as 
well as the loyalty of her people. It is not too much to 
say that no name in the long roll of sovereign rulers re- 
corded on the pages of history is held in higher esteem 
among Christian nations than is that of Victoria. 

Prince Albert. — On the 10th of February, 1840, Queen 
Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg- 
Gotha. This alliance was not, so far as we can see, the 
product of statecraft, but a love match, pure and simple. 
It was as fortunate for the state as it was felicitous to the 
queen, for the Prince Consort came to feel for the welfare 
of the English people all the deep solicitude that ani- 
mated the queen herself. He was handsome, graceful, 
and accomplished, and well fitted to shine in courtly 
circles, but he was also grave, studious, and business- 
like, and devoted himself to the sober affairs of the gov- 
ernment with marked interest and discretion. In 1861, 
after twenty years of devotion to queen and adopted coun- 
try, the Prince Consort died, deeply lamented by the 
English people. He is held in grateful remembrance in 
America, for he was her friend at the most critical 
period she has ever known. To him is also due the 
inception of that series of international exhibitions which 
have become a permanent institution in the world, and 

1 As the laws of Hanover forbade female succession, except in default of male 
heirs, that kingdom reverted, at once, on the accession of Victoria, to Ernest, Duke 
of Cumberland, the nearest male heir of the House of Brunswick. Hanover had 
been a useless appendage of the British Empire since the accession of George I., 
and its return to the condition of an independent state was not regretted by the 
British people. 



280 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

whose value in spreading a knowledge of useful arts and 
inventions, and in stimulating a friendly rivalry among 
the nations in the ever widening field of development, 
cannot be overestimated. They will be a potent factor 
in hastening that good time to come, when war among 
enlightened nations shall be no more. 

Reform Legislation. — The legislation of this reign has 
been characterized, far more than any of its predecessors, 
by the spirit of progress. It is impossible in this little 
book even to name all the oppressive statutes and prac- 
tices which have been swept away forever, nor all the 
measures that have been devised to perfect the liberties 
and enlarge the opportunities of the English people. 
Reform Bills, the matured products of experience and 
statesmanship, have followed one another in rapid suc- 
cession. This whole reign is radiant with the genius of 
Cobden, Bright, Gladstone, and other leaders in the 
reform movements of the day. The British govern- 
ment, at first following reluctantly in the footsteps of 
an advancing public sentiment, now leads the van in 
the grand march of improvement. 

Not only has it secured to the English people, in a 
broad and general sense, the enjoyment of civil and reli- 
gious liberty, but it has brought within the scope of its 
inquiry the minutest details of their condition. Not alone 
at home, but to the remotest limits of the empire has 
beneficent legislation sought to improve the condition of 
British subjects. 

The Chartists. — No sooner had the excitement attend- 
ing the reform movement of 1832 subsided, than a new 
agitation began to occupy public attention. It finally 



VICTORIA 28l 

culminated, in 1838, in an organization bearing the name 
of "The Chartists." Its principles and objects were em- 
bodied in a document called "The People's Charter," 
under six distinct heads : First, universal suffrage ; sec- 
ond, vote by ballot ; third, annual Parliaments ; fourth, 
payment of members of Parliament ; fifth, abolition of 
the property qualification ; sixth, equal electoral districts. 
Although these six "points" were based on so many real 
or supposed grievances, the first, " universal suffrage," 
had more to do with the rise and spread of Chartism 
than any other, if not all others. The demand for uni- 
versal suffrage arose soon after the passage of the Reform 
Bill of 1832, by which the electorate was extended to the 
middle classes, and not to the workingmen. Hence the 
discontent of the latter, who made up the great body of 
the Chartist organization. It early divided into two parties, 
the "Moral Force" and the "Physical Force" Chartists. 
The excesses of the latter, and their threats to overthrow 
the government and establish a republic unless the "Char- 
ter" were adopted, brought the whole movement into dis- 
repute. Little was heard of it again until the year 1848, 
when another French revolution disturbed the peace of 
Europe, causing an immense revival of Chartism in Eng- 
land. Petitions were industriously circulated for the adop- 
tion of the " People's Charter " by Parliament. These 
petitions, claiming to have 5,700,000 signatures, were to be 
carried to the House of Commons, at the head of a proces- 
sion of half a million persons. The possibility that a revo- 
lution might be attempted, similar to that which had just 
taken place in France, led the government to make the 
most gigantic preparations to meet it. The procession 



282 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

was declared to be illegal, and forbidden to take place. 
Special constables, to the number of one hundred and 
seventy thousand, were sworn in, among whom was Prince 
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who was soon to accomplish 
another revolution in France, and to place himself at the 
head of the restored empire. All available troops were 
brought to the capital, and placed under the command of 
the Duke of Wellington. The preparations of the gov- 
ernment terrified the Chartists, and on the day appointed 
for their grand demonstration only thirty thousand as- 
sembled at the rendezvous on Kennington Common. No 
procession was attempted, and the monster petition was 
wheeled to the House of Commons and respectfully pre- 
sented by Feargus O'Connor, the Chartist leader. A 
careful examination of its contents showed that there 
were less than two million, instead of more than five mil- 
lion signatures, and a large number of these were found 
to be spurious. There were "Prince Albert," "the Queen," 
" Duke of Wellington," " Pugnose," and the like. From 
this moment Chartism, convicted of fraud and branded 
as revolutionary, fell into public contempt, and the whole 
organization speedily dissolved. But its elements, reor- 
ganized and carrying forward the work of reform in a 
wiser way, have accomplished the most important ob- 
jects of the " Charter." Suffrage is universal, the ballot is 
in use, the property qualification has been abolished, and 
the electoral districts have been made equal. Of the two 
remaining points, payment of members of Parliament will 
probably come, but annual Parliaments would keep the 
country in a state of perpetual turmoil and will probably 
never be adopted. 



VICTORIA 283 

An Act of Parliament, in 1845, admitted Jews to munic- 
ipal offices, and another, in 1858, made them eligible to 
Parliament. 

Repeal of the Corn Laws. — Although the Corn Laws, 
passed in 181 5, had undergone repeated changes, they 
still fettered English commerce and remained an oppress- 
ive burden to the poor. The discontent of the people 
found expression, in 1839, m an organization called "The 
Anti-Corn-Law League," designed to secure the repeal of 
all duties on breadstuffs. 

At the head of this League stood Richard Cobden and 
John Bright, two of England's noblest sons. The diffi- 
culties in the way of a repeal of the Corn Laws seemed 
almost insuperable. Notwithstanding the increased repre- 
sentation of the manufacturing and commercial classes in 
Parliament, nine tenths of the members still represented 
the landed interests and held firmly to a high tariff on 
imported grain. They argued that the repeal of the Corn 
Laws would destroy the profits of agriculture, at that time 
the leading interest ; that the land would cease to be culti- 
vated and return to a state of wilderness, and that the 
condition of the rural population, dependent, as they 
were, on the cultivation of the soil, would become deplor- 
able. The Reform League directed its efforts, not so much 
to the conversion of members of Parliament, as to the 
creation of a public sentiment in favor of free trade, and 
so to a gradual change in the complexion of the House 
of Commons. Public speakers were sent into all the rural 
districts, where they addressed vast assemblies of the 
working people in behalf of their favorite doctrine. 
Papers and pamphlets, advocating the same views, were 



284 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

scattered all over England. The result of efforts so per- 
sistent and systematic may easily be anticipated. The 
great change that took place even among the people of 
the agricultural districts was soon perceptible in the 
increasing number of free traders that were elected to 
Parliament. 

At the rise of the " Anti-Corn-Law League," the 
Chartists sought to unite the forces of the two move- 
ments, but the leaders of the League refused to adopt 
the six articles of the Chartists, thinking it wiser to 
direct their efforts to the accomplishment of the single 
end they had in view, the repeal of the Corn Laws. 
The Chartists, under the lead of Feargus O'Connor, 
then threw their influence against the cause of the 
League. In spite of all obstacles, however, the latter 
organization carried its point. Sir Robert Peel, who was 
at the head of a conservative ministry, became a convert 
to the doctrine of free trade, and a bill for the repeal of 
the Corn Laws passed both Houses in 1846. But the 
complete extinction of duties on breadstuffs did not 
take place till 1849. The same year the famous Navi- 
gation laws, originally passed during the Commonwealth, 
in 165 1, and amended from time to time, were entirely 
repealed, and thus the last obstacle to trade with Eng- 
land was removed. The predictions of disaster to the 
agricultural interests and to the rural population, so freely 
made during the progress of the campaign, were not 
realized. Since that day " free trade " — the right to 
buy in the cheapest, and to sell in the dearest, market — 
has been the watchword in England. 

The Education Bill. — The Parliament of 1870 passed 



VICTORIA 285 

a measure establishing a national system of public 
schools. This resembled, in many respects, the New 
England system, having local school boards, and fur- 
nishing all needed help to indigent children. The 
necessity of legislative action on a subject so vital to 
the welfare of the nation was made apparent during the 
consideration of the bill. An investigation showed that 
two thirds of the children of England were utterly des- 
titute of school privileges. Of 83,000 children in Bir- 
mingham, only 26,000 attended school. Of 90,000 in 
Liverpool, but 30,000 had school advantages. The 
Education Bill was warmly supported by men of both 
parties, and became law on the 22d of July, 1870. Un- 
der the direction of boards of education, schools were 
speedily established in all parts of England, and to-day, 
except in some of the more sparsely settled districts, 
every child in England can receive the rudiments of an 
English education. 

The Ballot Act. — The system of open voting (viva 
voce), the only one in use in England, had led to much 
corruption. It had ceased to be an honest expression of 
the will of the people in civil affairs. The rich had come 
to make open traffic of the votes of the poor. The ten- 
ant farmer and the workingman went to the polls terror- 
ized, for home and daily bread for wife and children 
often depended on their voting in accordance with the 
wishes or interests of landlord or employer. It is re- 
corded by Mr. McCarthy that the landlords in Ireland 
often took their tenants to the polls like droves of slaves. 
The Ballot Act of 1872 required the ballot to be inclosed 
in an envelope and deposited in the ballot box, thus ena- 



286 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

bling the voter to exercise the right of suffrage without 
sacrificing either his manhood or his living. 

The Disestablishment of the Irish Church. — The Cath- 
olic Emancipation Bill, passed in the reign of George IV., 
had done much toward the pacification of Ireland. Of 
the grievances still remaining, the requirements of the 
law in regard to the established or Anglican church 
were perhaps the most exasperating to the Irish people. 
The communicants of this church numbered about one 
eighth of the population, those of the various dissenting 
bodies somewhat less, while the Roman Catholic Church 
embraced within its pale the rest, somewhat more than 
six eighths of the entire population. Besides supporting 
their own worship, the Catholics were compelled to pay 
certain specific tithes to support the worship of the An- 
glican Church. Although all the temporalities of the 
church, amounting to ^16,000,000, with an income of 
nearly .£1,000,000, were in the hands of the Anglican 
clergy, the very bread was often taken from the poverty- 
stricken hovel of the delinquent Irish Catholic, or his 
solitary cow was driven away, and " the wolf left at his 
door," that God might be worshiped in Ireland after 
the established manner. We cannot wonder that the 
Irishman, as he saw his hungry children gather about 
the scanty board, sometimes turned, in rage or despair, 
with a murderous purpose, upon the exacting taxgatherer, 
or that violence and misery filled the beautiful but mis- 
governed land. 

In 1869, during the Gladstone ministry, a bill was 
introduced into Parliament to disestablish the Irish 
Church. This bill placed all the religious sects on the 



VICTORIA 287 

same level, making them alike dependent on the volun- 
tary contributions of the people for their support. It 
passed the House of Commons by a large majority. In 
the House of Lords, though denounced as " the most revo- 
lutionary measure ever submitted to Parliament since the 
Reformation," it also received a majority of the votes cast, 
and became law January 1, 1871. Irish prelates ceased at 
once to sit in the House of Lords. 

The Irish Land Question. — Of all Irish questions the 
land question has been the most fruitful of trouble, and 
the most difficult of solution. The rebellions and confis- 
cations of times long past placed most of the land in 
the hands of a few proprietors. The great estates were 
divided into small farms and rented to the Irish people, 
the most of whom were dependent on the cultivation of 
the soil for a livelihood. Being mere tenants at will of the 
proprietors, they had neither pride nor interest in making 
improvements. Most of the farms having no houses, the 
tenants made such homes for their families as they could, 
for the most part mere mud hovels. That England has 
been unjust to the Irish people in many ways in the times 
that are past is patent to every reader of history, but that 
the worst of the woes that have rested on them like a 
leaden weight were fastened there in ages when might 
was thought to be right, and before the English people 
had wrung from unwilling kings the rule of right and jus- 
tice for themselves, is equally patent. It is chiefly within 
the reign of Victoria that any serious attempts have been 
made to right the wrongs of Ireland. 

The Irish Land Bills of 1870 and 1881. — The Land Bill 
of 1870, adopted during the ministry of Gladstone, allow- 



288 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

ing tenant farmers compensation for improvements made 
by them, if compelled to vacate, did not realize the expec- 
tations of its framers. The high rents and the uncer- 
tainty of agreement between landlord and tenant as to 
the value forbade or discouraged the making of such 
improvements. 

Later legislation, designed to protect the rights of the 
landlord, on the one hand, and those of the tenant, on 
the other, promises better results. The Land Bill of 1881 
guarantees to the tenant farmer the occupancy of his little 
tract so long as he pays the rent. The establishment of 
Land Courts to arbitrate questions in dispute between 
landlord and tenant securely guards the latter against 
excessive rent. The bill also gives the tenant the right 
to buy the farm he tills, with the same provision against 
excessive valuation. 

For a while after the passage of the Act of 1881 the 
country was kept in a state of turmoil by the unwise and 
unpatriotic action of the " Irish Land League," which 
denounced the Act, and raised the cry, "no rent at all." 
The only possible outcome of such a course was the 
widespread renewal of harsh evictions for the non-pay- 
ment of rent, and an alarming increase of agrarian crime. 
It was during this period of excitement that Lord Caven- 
dish, Chief Secretary for Ireland, was murdered in Phcenix 
Park, Dublin, by Irishmen styling themselves " Invinci- 
bles." A stringent measure quickly passed both Houses 
of Parliament for the " prevention of crimes " in Ireland, 
and its prompt enforcement soon brought the country to a 
state of order. 

That the "Act of 1881 " was a wise and efficient meas- 



VICTORIA 289 

ure is best seen in the almost complete cessation of evic- 
tions, and the peace and quiet that prevail throughout the 
land. 

The Reform Bill of 1884. — The Reform Bill of 1832 
was important as the first step ever taken by the English 
Parliament to reform representation in the House of 
Commons. 

In 1867, during the ministry of Lord Derby, another 
step was taken, by which the elective franchise was 
extended, chiefly among the middle classes, and the 
representation made somewhat more equal. It remained 
for the Bill of 1884, during the second ministry of Glad- 
stone, to complete the work of reformation. The elect- 
ive franchise was given to workingmen, increasing the 
electoral body to 5,000,000 voters. The franchise was 
made uniform in counties and boroughs, the country 
being divided into equal electoral districts, each having 
a single member in the House of Commons. The general 
basis was one member to every 60,000 inhabitants. Bor- 
oughs with less than 15,000 inhabitants were joined to 
the counties ; others with less than 50,000 were allowed 
one member each; and others with less than 165,000, two 
members. London's representation at once rose to sixty- 
two members. The whole number of members of the 
House of Commons was 670. 

The Local Government Act. — The last and crowning 
enactment for the pacification of Ireland passed the 
British Parliament in 1898, to go into effect after the 
elections in 1899. This Act makes very few changes 
in the government of large towns and cities, as they were 
already substantially self-governing, but in the country 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 1 9 



290 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

districts these changes take on the character of a com- 
plete revolution. District and County Councilors, elected 
by the people for a term of three years, on the basis of 
nearly universal suffrage, including suffrage for women 
who pay rates, are invested with the powers, in purely 
local matters, hitherto exercised by the landlord aristoc- 
racy and by the imperial government. In substance, 
the system is the one in use in the towns and counties 
of England, and is nearly analogous to that so common in 
America. While this Act does not establish "home-rule" 
in the form for which the Irish people have so long con- 
tended, — a national Parliament for the settlement of 
questions purely Irish, — it does give to them the sub- 
stance of "home-rule," in the numerous local governing 
bodies composed of the representatives of the people. 
There are thirty-two County Councils, and a much larger 
number of District Councils. The chairman of a County 
Council becomes, by virtue of his office, a justice of the 
peace and a magistrate for the county. The right to veto 
action of a council is reserved to imperial authority, but 
it is safe to assume that it will not be needlessly used. A 
brighter day has indeed dawned on the long-oppressed 
Emerald Isle. 

Foreign Affairs. — In an empire so extensive as that of 
Great Britain, covering every clime, and inhabited by 
peoples of every race, faith, and social state, internal 
dissensions are inevitable. But the most serious diffi- 
culties England has had to encounter, especially in Asia 
and Africa, where most of the wars of this reign have 
been located, have arisen from the barbarous states 
beyond the British borders, naturally hostile to the for- 



VICTORIA 291 

eign rule established near them. The very extent of 
the British border lines, with few or no defenses, has 
been a constant incitement to hostile incursions. Eng- 
land's experience shows that the only way to permanent 
peace with many of these troublesome peoples is through 
conquest and annexation, and the establishment of military 
rule, to be relaxed only when a disposition toward peace- 
ful pursuits and a habit of submission to authority have 
been acquired. To leave such peoples to themselves 
before this measure of civilization has been attained is 
to see them return to their old savage or barbarous ways 
and wars. 

The most of the wars of Victoria's reign have been 
such as are here indicated, and they have resulted in the 
addition of vast areas and populations to the British 
Empire. 

Wars with China. — A shameful war was waged with 
China to force upon her the trade in opium. The 
Emperor of China, seeing the deadly effects of the poi- 
sonous drug upon his people, forbade its importation. 
The English merchants, unwilling to give up the prof- 
itable trade, and having resorted to smuggling, were 
imprisoned by the Chinese government, and whole car- 
goes of opium were seized and destroyed. War was 
declared by the British government in 1840. The sur- 
render of Canton to a British army, and the siege of 
Nankin, forced the emperor to submit. The cession of 
Hongkong to the British, and the opening of five princi- 
pal ports to commerce, were the results. 

A questionable war was declared, in 1856, on account of 
the seizure of a Chinese vessel called the Arrow, charged 



292 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

with piracy but flying the British flag. The Chinese gov- 
ernment refusing to surrender the vessel, the British fleet, 
under Admiral Seymour, bombarded the forts of Canton 
and forced the surrender of the city. The treaty of 1858 
opened five more ports to the commerce of the world, and 
all China to the missionaries of the Christian religion. 

War was again declared in 1859, by France and Great 
Britain, on account of the failure of China to respect the 
treaties. The allied fleet sailed up the Peiho, took the 
Taku forts, and a land force marched on Pekin. Envoys, 
despatched to communicate with the emperor, were seized, 
and, after cruel torture, were put to death. 

Pekin was carried by storm, and the magnificent sum- 
mer palace of the emperor, filled with curious and costly 
works of art, was looted by the soldiery and burned to the 
ground. By the treaty of i860, a British minister was 
allowed to reside at the imperial court, a part of the prov- 
ince of Canton was ceded to the British, the port of Tien- 
tsin was opened to trade, and a heavy indemnity was paid 
for the lives taken. 

The Syrian War. — In 1839 Mehemet Ali, Pasha of 
Egypt, made an attempt to cast off the Turkish yoke. 
His adopted son, Ibrahim Pasha, several years before, 
had led an Egyptian army into Syria and had completely 
overthrown the Turkish forces gathered to oppose him. 
To make matters still worse for the Sultan, the Turkish 
high admiral stationed in the waters of the Bosphorus, 
sailing away, entered the harbor of Alexandria and deliv- 
ered the entire Turkish fleet to Mehemet. The sultan, 
unable to rescue his Asiatic dominions from the grasp of 
the warlike Ibrahim, and trembling for the safety of Con- 



VICTORIA 293 

stantinople itself, appealed to the European powers for 
help. 

Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria responded 
to this appeal for the simple object of saving the Ottoman 
empire from dissolution. The allied fleet promptly block- 
aded the ports of Egypt and Syria, forced Beirut to capitu- 
late, and landed an army under Commodore Napier. 
The army under Ibrahim was beaten in a pitched battle 
and dispersed, and finally Acre, the key to all Syria, was 
bombarded and taken. The appearance of the victorious 
fleet in the harbor of Alexandria forced Mehemet to sue 
for peace. The treaty, signed in 1 840, was more favorable 
to Egypt than to Turkey, for, though the sultan recovered 
his lost fleet, the pasha was left only a nominal subject of 
the Sublime Porte, and the Pashalic of Egypt was made 
the inheritance of his family. 

The necessity of maintaining the integrity of the Otto- 
man empire forced the allies to give Syria back to the 
sultan. The Syrian people, under the brief but enlight- 
ened rule of Ibrahim, had entered on a period of prosperity 
they had never known before, and it was now hard fortune 
when they were left to groan under the iron heel of Tur- 
key's power. 

The Indian Mutiny. — British India had gradually ex- 
tended its boundaries to the Himalayas on the north, 
and to the Indus on the west. There was but a handful 
of British soldiers in the whole of this vast empire, the 
garrisons in the different departments being composed 
chiefly of native soldiers, called Sepoys, with British 
officers. 

The government had decided to supply their Indian 



294 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

troops with an improved rifle using a greased cartridge 
the end of which had to be bitten off in loading. The ox 
is sacred to the Hindoo, and the hog an abomination to 
the Mohammedan. The native soldiers of both religions, 
believing that beef-fat and lard were used in preparing 
the cartridges, for the purpose of entrapping them into 
Christianity, began to revolt. But there was another 
cause of revolt, a deep-seated disaffection on the part 
of the natives, growing out of the extortion practiced by- 
British officials. From the time of Warren Hastings 1 to 
the breaking out of the revolt, the English had made office 
in India an avenue to wealth, and the long-smothered 
resentment of the natives was ready to burst forth on the 
first occasion. The first movement of the revolt occurred 
at Meerut, in Bengal, May 10, 1857. The garrisons in 
the different districts following the example of that at 
Meerut, all India was soon in a state of insurrection. 
Over the atrocities perpetrated on British residents, and 
especially on helpless women and children, we must draw 
the veil. Indian soldiers, hitherto their trusted and faith- 
ful protectors, were suddenly transformed into merciless 
fiends. 

Havelock and the Relief of Lucknow. — Cawnpur on the 
borders, and Lucknow in the interior, of Oudh, garrisoned 

1 Warren Hastings was a man of marked ability. Originally a clerk in the 
employ of the East India Company, he rose in 1774 to the position of Governor- 
General. He came to the government of India at a time of great danger. The 
French, in alliance with native chiefs, renewed the struggle for the possession of 
the Carnatic. With a skill and vigor that remind us of Robert Clive, Hastings not 
only reestablished the British authority, but he also greatly extended the British 
dominion. His administration was as unscrupulous as it was able, and on his 
return to England he was impeached for cruelty and extortion. His trial lasted 
from 1788 to 1795, and is one of the most remarkable on record. 



VICTORIA 295 

by a small number of British soldiers, were besieged by a 
great multitude of savage natives. General Havelock, with 
a small force, of whom only fourteen hundred were British, 
pressed bravely forward to relieve the beleaguered towns. 
He encountered the Indian hordes under Nana Sahib (an 
enlightened and hitherto friendly chief, but now the most 
fierce and bloodthirsty of the rebels) in battle after battle. 
Though victorious, he was every day getting deeper into 
the enemy's country, and his little force was slowly melt- 
ing away. At last he reached Cawnpur only to learn that 
its entire English population had been massacred. He 
started at once for Lucknow, fearing lest he should be 
too late to save its inhabitants from a like fate. Con- 
stantly assailed on every side by a host of fierce, swarthy 
foes, and exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, 
the heroic little band pressed bravely on and finally 
reached their destination. They found the British shut 
up in the Residency, which had been hastily fortified at 
the beginning of the revolt. Havelock, unable to fight 
his way out, encumbered with women and children, could 
only maintain himself within the poor defenses of the 
Residency and wait for help. 

Campbell and the Second Relief of Lucknow. — The 
British government hurried reinforcements, as fast as 
possible, to the theater of war. Sir Colin Campbell was 
placed at the head of the army. Taking an ample force, 
the gallant Scotchman rapidly advanced to the second 
relief of Lucknow. He had need to hurry. Exposed to 
the incessant fire of the enemy, whose shot pierced every 
part of their retreat except the cellars, where the women 
and children found shelter, the British soldiers at Luck- 



296 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

now were falling fast. If we can but feebly imagine the 
horrors of the siege, as month after month rolled away 
without a sign of succor, still less can we realize what 
must have been the emotions of the besieged when they 
heard, beyond the circle of their yelling, bloodthirsty foes, 
the distant sound of the Highland music, and, as it came 
nearer, caught the notes of that old familiar air, " The 
Campbells are coming!" Lucknow was relieved on the 
17th of November, 1857. Though far inferior to the 
rebels in number, Campbell's army conducted the survivors 
of the terrible siege to a place of safety. But the noble 
Havelock, who had borne up under incessant toil and 
exposure so long as danger threatened the helpless people 
under his charge, quickly sickened and died when the 
crisis had passed ; and another name was added to the 
British roll of honor. The prompt and efficient measures 
of the government were crowned with abundant success. 
The British authority was reestablished more firmly than 
ever in all the revolted districts. An important and needed 
change was made in the transfer of the government of 
India from the Company to the Crown. The queen was 
later made Empress of India, which is governed through 
a viceroy aided by a council. 

The Afghan Wars. — Lord Auckland, Governor-General 
of India, imagining that Afghanistan had sinister designs 
on British India, in 1839 sent a large army to invade that 
country, probably for its conquest. Kabul and other 
important cities were taken, but the gathering of Afghan 
forces and the difficulty of obtaining supplies forced the 
British to an ignominious treaty and a disastrous retreat. 
Seventeen thousand persons, soldiers and civilians, began 



VICTORIA 297 

the return march to India, and only a single horseman 
reached Jelalabad on the Afghan border to tell the appall- 
ing tale. The cold of winter, snows in the mountain passes, 
and the bullets of the Afghans, who hung day and night 
on the line of retreat, decimated and finally annihilated 
the whole British force. In 1842 Lord Ellenborough, the 
new Governor-General of India, was ambitious to retrieve 
the shame and loss of the previous campaign by one of his 
own. It is enough to say that his army occupied Kabul 
for a short time, in the midst of a sullen and unsubdued 
people, and returned to India in safety, but without the 
accomplishment of a single good result. 

The nearest point at which British India is open to in- 
vasion by Russia is through Afghanistan at the extreme 
northwest. For many years Russian forces had been 
advancing southward through Central Asia, organizing 
governments and establishing garrisons, until, at last, 
the northern frontier of Afghanistan was reached. An 
embassy, sent to Kabul, the capital, to advance Russian 
interests, was received with great favor by the Ameer. A 
like embassy dispatched by the British government to 
guard British interests, was met at the Khaibar Pass by 
an Afghan force and turned back. Great Britain took 
quick alarm and declared war, for Russian supremacy 
at the court of the ameer, either through diplomacy or 
conquest, would mean an open door for the Russian in- 
vasion of British India. Beginning in 1878, this second 
Afghan War went on with varying success until the year 
1880, when Sir Frederick Roberts overwhelmed the last 
Afghan army before the walls of Kandahar, and the 
ameer was brought to his knees. This victory and a 



298 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

subsidy of .£120,000 made British . influence all-potent, 
and thus Afghanistan was made an impassable barrier 
to further Russian advance. A little later British and 
Russian commissioners laid out a new boundary line on 
the north. 

The Abyssinian War. — The expedition to Abyssinia in 
1867 was a mere incident in the military history of this 
reign, but is so picturesque as to invite a little attention. 
It is like a spark of the spirit of knight-errantry flaring 
up in the midst of the prosaics of the nineteenth century. 
Theodore, the half-savage king of Abyssinia, impulsive 
and passionate, but of measureless self-importance, pro- 
posed an alliance with Great Britain in a war on Turkey, 
of which proposal no notice whatever was taken by the 
British government. 

Another version is that Theodore, claiming descent 
from the far-famed and far-off Queen of Sheba, the 
admirer of Solomon, proposed a marriage alliance with an 
English lady of royal blood, and that no reply was made- 
to his suit. Whichever is true, the fiery soul of the high- 
born barbarian waxed wroth at the deliberate affront put 
upon him, and he threw into prison walls every Briton, 
man, woman, or child, to be found in his dominions. 
Envoys sent to demand their release only swelled the 
number of his prisoners. 

An expedition numbering 12,000 men, under Sir Robert 
Napier, sent from Bombay, landed on the west coast of 
the Red Sea and began the 400-mile march to Magdala, 
the Abyssinian capital. The way ran through a rugged, 
trackless wilderness, now Avinding through narrow rocky 
gorges, and now climbing rough mountain heights, in one 



VICTORIA 299 

place 10,000 feet above the sea. Magdala was reached 
with only a brief encounter, in a mountain pass, with the 
gayly decked Abyssinian horsemen. It stood on a tower- 
ing rock with sheer precipitous sides, " which a cat could 
not climb except at two points," according to Sir Robert. 

But up the steep and narrow path climbed the British 
soldiers, till, at the very summit, they reached a massive 
gate. This was battered down, — and Magdala was won. 
Just within the gateway lay the body of Theodore, proba- 
bly a suicide. Leaving Magdala " a blackened rock," the 
soldiers wound their way back to the seaboard, without the 
loss of a life in battle, but covered with glory. Sir Robert 
was made " Baron Napier of Magdala " and a pensioner of 
the kingdom. It need only be added that the prisoners 
had all been released before the arrival of the army, in the 
hope that its march would be stayed. Theodore's son, a 
little boy of seven, was taken to England to be educated, 
but he died before reaching maturity. 

The Balance of Power in Europe. — In his " Law of 
Nations," Vattel thus defines the expression "balance of 
power": "By this balance is to be understood such a 
disposition of things, as that no one potentate or state 
shall be able absolutely to predominate and to prescribe 
to the others." The mere principle of an alliance among 
states exposed to a common danger is as old as the exist- 
ence of states themselves ; but the use of this principle 
in ancient times was only occasional or accidental. Its 
adoption by any number of states as a definite and per- 
manent principle of action is comparatively modern. The 
states of Greece often combined against some one of their 
number that seemed to be attaining to a power dangerous 



300 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

to the rest. The coalitions against the occupation of Italy 
by the French under Charles VIII. and against the ambi- 
tious schemes of Ferdinand II. of Germany, the repeated 
alliances to repel the aggressions of Louis XIV. of France, 
and the wars inspired by the vaulting ambition of Napo- 
leon, are all illustrations of the same principle. 

After the close of the Napoleonic wars, the idea of a 
permanent organization of powers to maintain the estab- 
lished equilibrium in Europe took definite shape. The 
five great powers of Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, 
and Austria constituted themselves a standing tribunal 
to preserve the balance of power in Europe. From that 
time to the present, this colossal tribunal has dominated 
the entire continent, and, as a result, comparatively few 
changes have taken place in territorial lines. 

The " balance of power " principle has operated not only 
to prevent the undue expansion of any one state, but also 
to break up empires whose overshadowing power made 
them dangerous to the rest. The partition of the Span- 
ish empire after the death of Charles II. is an illustration 
of this. An attempt was made in a congress at Vienna, 
in 1853, to obtain a vote to restore the kingdom of Poland, 
on the plea that its dismemberment had disturbed the 
balance of power in Europe. The opposition of Prussia 
and Austria, each of whom possessed a portion of the 
dismembered kingdom, defeated the project. But the 
chief value of this principle lies in the security which it 
gives to the smaller and weaker states, preventing their 
absorption by their more powerful neighbors. It shielded 
the little Dutch Republic from the ambitious designs of 
the most powerful monarch of his time, Louis XIV. It 



VICTORIA 301 

has availed thus far to preserve the integrity of the Turkish 
empire against the aggressions of Russia, whose chief 
ambition is. the possession of Constantinople. 

The Eastern Question. — For many years the Eastern 
question has occupied the attention of the European 
powers. The repeated atrocities committed by the Turks 
on Christians in their European as well as Asiatic prov- 
inces, have led to protests and even threats of intervention 
on the part of the powers. Mutual jealousies have made 
an effective settlement of this question impossible. The 
problem which the powers always have before them is, 
how to limit the authority and dominions of the sultan 
without increasing those of neighboring potentates, nota- 
bly the czar. Wholly to extinguish the rule of the sultan 
in Europe would be simply to install that of the czar at 
Constantinople. The "Colossus of the North," once 
firmly planted on the Bosphorus, would henceforth domi- 
nate two continents. Of Russian aspirations there is not 
a moment's doubt. Since the time of Peter the Great, the 
Russian czars have waited with infinite patience but death- 
less purpose for the fateful hour to strike, when the Rus- 
sian national ensign should supplant the Crescent on the 
shores of the Golden Horn. 

The Crimean War. — In 1853 Czar Nicholas thought 
the time was ripe for a move on Constantinople. He had 
sounded the British premier, Lord Aberdeen, on the sub- 
ject of the proper disposal of the "sick man's" dominions, 
in the event of his demise, and had even hinted that Egypt 
and the island of Crete were at the command of Great 
Britain as her share of the spoils. While giving no en- 
couragement to this proposition, Lord Aberdeen kept the 



302 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

matter secret from Parliament. The czar's first move was 
to demand of the sultan that the Greek Christians in his 
dominions should be wholly committed to the protecting 
care of the Russian government. This demand being 
curtly refused, a Russian army quickly crossed the frontiers 
of Moldavia and Wallachia, the northeastern provinces of 
Turkey. This was declared, by a congress of nations 
at Vienna, to be a violation of the " balance of power in 
Europe." Upon the refusal of Russia to withdraw from 
the invaded territory, Great Britain and France sent their 
combined fleets to the Black and Baltic seas. The effort 
to reach St. Petersburg being defeated by the strength of 
the fortifications at Cronstadt, the allies concentrated their 
forces on the Crimea and laid siege to Sebastopol, the 
great stronghold of Russia on the Black Sea. The allied 
armies landed near the town of Eupatoria on the 14th of 
September, 1854, but it was not until the 9th of Septem- 
ber, 1855, that they occupied the deserted fortifications of 
Sebastopol. We cannot dwell on the painful and pro- 
tracted siege. To the sufferings of the soldiers, insuffi- 
ciently provided with food, clothing, and shelter, for a 
Russian winter, were added the horrors of a wasting pesti- 
lence, rendered all the more fatal by a lack of medical 
stores. About eighteen thousand British soldiers died of 
disease during the siege, while only four thousand perished 
through the casualties of war. But the gloomy picture is 
illumined by a heroism more lofty than that of arms. A 
band of noble women, under the charge of Florence 
Nightingale, left the comforts of their English homes to 
minister to the wants of their sick and wounded country- 
men in the military hospitals. 



VICTORIA 303 

The passage of the Alma, the " Charge of the Light 
Brigade" at Balaklava, the repulse of the Russians at 
Inkermann, and the capture of the Malakoff Tower were 
the most interesting events of the war. The occupation 
of the Malakoff led to the fall of Sebastopol, and forced 
the Czar of all the Russias to sue for peace. By the 
Treaty of Paris, in 1856, Russia consented to abandon all 
control over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, to relinquish 
her claims to control the mouths of the Danube, to dis- 
mantle the fortifications of Sebastopol, and to maintain no 
fleet and no naval station in the Black Sea. A few small 
armed vessels were allowed Russia and Turkey, in the 
Black Sea, for the protection of commerce, which was 
made free to all nations. 

The integrity of the Ottoman empire was guaranteed. 
The Straits of Dardanelles and Bosphorus were closed to 
the war vessels of all nations in time of peace. 

The treaty powers, at the same time, signed an agree- 
ment to abolish the practice of privateering. It was 
decided that a neutral flag should protect an enemy's 
goods, except contraband of war ; that neutral goods in an 
enemy's ship, except contraband of war, should be exempt 
from capture, and that blockades to be binding must be 
effective. 

The czar submitted to the rigorous terms imposed upon 
him by the Treaty of Paris, because he was powerless to 
resist, but he allowed no opportunity to recover him- 
self to pass unimproved. In 1870, taking advantage of 
the life-and-death struggle between France and Prussia, 
two of the treaty powers, when Great Britain alone 
was free to offer effective resistance, he announced his 



304 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

intention to abrogate that part of the treaty that restricted 
his freedom in the Black Sea. A congress of powers in 
London was constrained to confirm the abrogation, and 
now war ships are building and forts and arsenals rising 
anew on the shores of the Black Sea. 

The Russo-Turkish War. — In 1876 the Bulgarians, 
largely Greek Christians, rose in revolt against the oppress- 
ive Turkish rule. The Bashi-bazouks, fierce fanatics of 
the Moslem faith, quelled the revolt, but horrified all 
Christendom by an indiscriminate slaughter of the Bulga- 
rian people. Neither age nor sex was spared. 

Gladstone came out of his retirement at Hawarden and 
sought to rouse the English people to action. He would 
bundle the Turk "bag and baggage out of Europe." 
Beaconsfield, Prime Minister, discrediting the reports of 
Bulgarian atrocities, held firmly to the English policy of 
maintaining Turkey as a. barrier to Russian aggression. 
A conference of powers at Constantinople accomplished 
nothing. Then it was that the czar, lone champion of 
the oppressed Bulgarians, declared war with Turkey, and 
began the memorable march on Constantinople. After 
many and varying contests the Russian army came in 
sight of the minarets of the city, only to learn that an 
allied French and British fleet lay in the offing for its 
defense. The czar, once more submitting to the inevita- 
ble, recalled his victorious yet baffled forces, and the Russo- 
Turkish war was over. In a congress of powers at Berlin, 
in 1878, Russia regained Bessarabia on the north side of 
the lower Danube, and was confirmed in the possession of 
the port of Batum and the inland fortress of Kars, taken 
from Turkey during the war. The greater part of Euro- 



VICTORIA 305 

pean Turkey was either made independent or left only 
nominally under the rule of the sultan. Turkey was thus 
despoiled of her territory but maintained in her independ- 
ence, while Russia, with borders enlarged, is farther from 
Constantinople than before. 

Owing to a slaughter of Greek Christians in the island 
of Crete, by Turkish citizens and soldiers, a concert of 
powers, in 1897, decided that the Turkish garrison should 
be withdrawn and that a Christian governor should be 
appointed. Prince George, son of the King of Greece, 
was selected by the powers. The island still remains 
under the suzerainty of the sultan. 

Civil War in America. — In 1861, a civil war broke out 
in the United States, and early threatened to involve that 
country in another war with Great Britain. The revolted 
states organized a separate republic, under the name of 
"The Confederate States of America." Two commis- 
sioners, Mason and Slidell, were appointed to advance 
the Confederate interests at London and Paris. They 
succeeded in running the blockade and reaching Havana, 
where they took passage on the Trent, a British mail 
steamer bound for Liverpool. This vessel was overhauled 
by the United States frigate San Jacinto, under the com- 
mand of Captain Wilkes, and the Confederate commis- 
sioners and their secretaries were forcibly removed to 
the latter vessel and brought to the United States. The 
excitement in England created by this illegal act was 
intense. The British government demanded the instant 
surrender of the captured commissioners, and, without 
waiting for the reply of the United States, began vigor- 
ous preparations for war. Both army and navy were 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 20 



306 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

speedily put on a war footing, and regiments were dis- 
patched to Canada to secure the frontier. But the excite- 
ment subsided as quickly as it had risen, for the United 
States promptly disavowed the act of her rash captain 
and gracefully restored the Confederate commissioners to 
the protection of the British flag. 

But the United States had a grievance against Great 
Britain, growing out of the war, which the latter coun- 
try was not so ready to disavow and settle. Several 
vessels, the most noted of which was the Alabama, had 
been built and equipped in a dockyard on the Clyde, for 
the use of the Confederate States. Though notified by 
the American minister of the destination of the ves- 
sels, the British government took no measures to detain 
them, and they sailed away to prey upon Northern com- 
merce. The United States could not afford, during the 
continuance of civil strife, to press claims that might lead 
to war, and so these claims were allowed to remain in 
abeyance. At the close of the war, they became the 
subject of diplomacy between the two nations. Finally, 
in 1871, a Joint High Commission, composed of five mem- 
bers on each side, met at Washington and arranged the 
basis of a treaty. By this treaty all the questions at issue 
between the two countries were referred to a tribunal, 
composed of five arbitrators, to be selected, one each, 
by the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, 
and Brazil. This tribunal met on the 15th of June, 1872, 
at Geneva, Switzerland. It rejected the claims of the 
United States for indirect damages, but awarded as direct 
damages, on account of the depredations of the Alabama 
and other British-built privateers, the sum of $15,500,000, 



VICTORIA 307 

in gold. This award was promptly paid by Great Britain, 
and the relations of the two countries became once more 
harmonious. 

Egypt and the Loss of the Sudan. — In 1879 tne Khe- 
dive of Egypt, being in financial straits, borrowed money 
from France and England, giving them control of the 
Egyptian finances as security. In 1882 Arabi Pasha, 
Egyptian minister of war, revolted against the Khedive, 
his rallying cry being, " Egypt for the Egyptians." Riots 
in Alexandria and the bombardment of the forts by the 
British fleet brought on a crisis. Two thousand Euro- 
peans were slaughtered before a force could be landed 
to save them. Arabi's army was posted behind the ram- 
parts of Tel-el-Kebir. Making a landing from the Suez 
Canal, General Wolseley marched westward to Tel-el- 
Kebir, which he carried by storm, taking Arabi prisoner. 
The rebel leader was condemned to death, but was re- 
prieved by the British government and sent, a perpetual 
exile, to Ceylon. France having early retired from the 
affair, Egypt was left in the sole possession of the British. 

The scene now shifts to the arid wastes of the Sudan. 
Several years before this, General Gordon, known as 
"Chinese Gordon" from his exploits in China, having 
been appointed governor by the Khedive, brought the 
Sudan into comparative order. His greatest achievement 
was the suppression of the slave trade. For many years 
the Arab chiefs made havoc among the native Sudanese, 
taking them in large numbers and at enormous profits to 
the slave marts of Asia. The Sudan being pacified, Gen- 
eral Gordon returned to England in 1879, leaving Egyp- 
tian garrisons in Khartum and the principal towns. At 



308 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

this juncture Mohammed Ahmed, -a newly risen Islam 
prophet, styling himself the Mahdi, or the Messiah, raised 
the standard of revolt against Egyptian rule. Forces sent 
against him were cut to pieces, and all of Egyptian Sudan, 
outside the garrisoned towns, acknowledged his sway. In 
1884 General Gordon was sent by the British government 
on the quixotic mission of arranging with the Mahdi for 
the withdrawal of all Egyptian garrisons from the Sudan. 
He reached Khartum only to find himself a virtual pris- 
oner within its walls. Late in the year, a combined Brit- 
ish and Egyptian force under Lord Wolseley began an 
arduous march up the Nile Valley to the rescue of the 
hapless captive. Many and desperate fights with the 
forces of the Mahdi having delayed its progress, a flying 
column under Sir Charles Wilson pushed on, by land and 
river, and came in sight of Khartum, only to behold the 
black flag of the Mahdi flying from the battlements, and 
to learn that, two days before, the chivalrous Gordon had 
fallen a victim to Arab hate. The object of the expedi- 
tion having failed, the army returned to Egypt, and the 
whole vast region of the Sudan was abandoned to the 
Mahdi. 

Reconquest of the Sudan. — After the return of Lord 
Wolseley's expedition in 1885, no attempt was made to 
reconquer the Sudan till 1897. Sir Horatio Herbert 
Kitchener, masterful, skilled in resources, and familiar 
with the Sudan and its people, after serving many years 
in the Egyptian army in a subordinate capacity, was, in 
1890, appointed Sirdar, or commander-in-chief, by the 
Khedive. On beginning his advance into the Sudan, his 
first step was to build a railroad from Wady Haifa across 



VICTORIA 309 

the Nubian Desert to Abu Hamed on the Nile, and thence 
up the Nile Valley to a point above the Fifth Cataract. 

The Sirdar reached Fort Atbara at the junction of the 
Atbara and Nile rivers about March 1, 1898, and soon 
learned that the Mahdi (successor of the first Sudanese 
Mahdi) was at Nakheila, in a fortified camp called Zariba. 
On the 8th of April, after a two hours' bombardment, the 
Zariba was carried by storm, the Dervish army dispersed, 
and the Mahdi himself made prisoner. Early in August 
the Sirdar was on the road to Omdurman with the gun- 
boats, six in number, patrolling the river along the line of 
march. It took a month to reach the heights of Kerreri, 
from which, ten miles to the southward, could be seen the 
city of Omdurman spreading out over a vast area, with 
the great round tomb of the first Mahdi rising above all 
the rest. On the 1st of September the Khalifa, the civil 
and military ruler of the Sudan, was seen approaching 
with an army of 50,000 men. The Sirdar had 20,000. 
In the battle of Omdurman the great Dervish host was 
put to utter rout, the Khalifa and the fragments of his 
army flying far to the southward. Omdurman and 
Khartum were occupied without opposition. At the 
latter city a solemn memorial service was held in mem- 
ory of the murdered Gordon. A noble monument has 
been erected to his memory in the form of a memorial 
college for the education of Sudanese youth. In the fall 
of 1899, the Anglo-Egyptian army under Gen. Wingate 
fell upon the camp of the Khalifa near Godid. The Kha- 
lifa was killed, and all his principal emirs were either killed 
or captured. Thousands of prisoners were taken, and the 
Dervish power was completely crushed. 



3IO HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

In 1898 a French expedition, under Major Marchand, 
seized Fashoda, a Sudanese town on the Nile, about 400 
miles south of Khartum, as an outlet for the French 
Kongo State. Lord Salisbury demanded its withdrawal. 
France was inclined to refuse, and both nations prepared 
for war. France took a second thought and recalled the 
expedition, and the lowering war clouds passed away. 

The Far-Eastern Question. — There is another, the far- 
eastern question, looming up on the political horizon. 
China is in a state of chaos. Torn within and plundered 
without, she bids fair, at no distant day, wholly to disap- 
pear as an independent nation from the map of the world. 
The principal nations of Europe have obtained conces- 
sions of harbors and coaling stations on the coast of China, 
with extensive spheres of influence ; and there is, no 
doubt, a desire on their part to be in a favorable position 
to share in the more general partition of the Chinese 
empire, for which the world is looking. Great Britain 
and Russia are most deeply concerned in the affairs of 
China. The former has secured an extensive area on the 
mainland opposite Hongkong, and has a predominating 
influence in the great Yangtze Valley, while the latter 
is in virtual possession of the province of Manchuria. A 
convention between the czar and Lord Salisbury, in 1899, 
makes a conflict between Russia and Great Britain, on the 
far-eastern question, improbable. 

To what extent Japan may interest herself in these 
schemes of expansion in the far east cannot be foretold, 
but that the Japanese empire, whose rise and growth to 
the stature of a world-power is the marvel of the nine- 
teenth century, will be a potent factor in the final set- 



VICTORIA 311 

tlement of far-eastern questions there is not a moment's 
doubt. 

The Venezuelan Question. — In 1895 an old dispute 
as to the boundary line between Venezuela and British 
Guiana threatened to involve the former country in a war 
with Great Britain. As the forcible establishment of the 
line claimed by the British might be a violation of the 
Monroe doctrine, 1 a diplomatic correspondence ensued 
between Secretary Olney of the United States and Lord 
Salisbury, British premier. The result was a treaty in 
1896 between Venezuela and Great Britain, by which the 
whole question of the boundary line was referred to a 
board of five arbitrators, two to be chosen by Venezuela, 
two by Great Britain, and one by Russia, who should act 
as chairman and umpire. This board sat in Paris, and 
after the most careful investigation announced a unani- 
mous decision, October 3, 1899, by which Venezuela was 
awarded fifty miles of seacoast, including the mouths of 
the Orinoco, and Great Britain the greater part of the 
disputed territory inland, including the gold fields. 

The Spanish American War. — The policy pursued by 
Great Britain in the Spanish American War, which broke 
out in 1898, was one of strict neutrality, and, while afford- 
ing to Spain no just ground for complaint, was of signal 
service to America. With the effective blockade of Ha- 
vana and San Juan, Spain's principal coaling stations in 
the West Indies, the declared purpose of Great Britain to 
enforce the rules of international law in the coaling of 

1 The Monroe doctrine is a declaration made by President Monroe, of the 
United States, in 1823, that any attempt on the part of a European nation to in- 
terfere with the independence of an American state would be regarded by the 
United States as an unfriendly act. 



312 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

belligerent ships at British ports, regarding coal as " con- 
traband of war " when designed for war purposes, made 
the maintenance of a Spanish fleet on this side of the 
Atlantic a practical impossibility. During the progress 
of the war, and especially when Spanish prospects looked 
darkest, there were thought to be indications on the part 
of some European powers to form a concert for purposes 
of intervention. Great Britain showed no inclination to 
participate in such a movement. If its purpose was ami- 
able mediation, it might readily have been foreseen that 
the American government would respectfully decline its 
friendly offices. If, on the other hand, its ultimate pur- 
pose was coercive, either in the direction of limiting Amer- 
ica's field of war operations, or in restraining her from 
reaping the legitimate fruits of victory, the nations con- 
cerned had reason to fear that the whole naval power of 
Great Britain would be put into the scale against them. 
At all events, the uncertainty as to what Britain's attitude 
would be, in certain contingencies, was sufficient at the 
outset to paralyze a scheme of intervention. The animus 
of the European press, and the utterances of some Euro- 
pean diplomats, show that the inspiring spirit of the pro- 
posed concert was sympathy for Spain and hostility to 
America. That the American people believed that armed 
intervention was in the minds of some European poten- 
tates is evidenced by the almost tidal wave of good will 
for the mother country that overspread the American 
Republic from shore to shore. 

The Boer Wars. — The Boers are descended from Dutch 
Protestants who fled from the persecutions to which they 
were subjected at home, and settled Cape Town in ex- 



VICTORIA 3 1 3 

treme southern Africa in 1652. Captured by a British 
expedition in 1806, Cape Town became a permanent Brit- 
ish colony by the Peace of 181 5. To escape the new and 
irksome rule of the British, who interfered with some of 
their established customs, notably that of holding the 
native blacks in a state of slavery, some of the Boers 
abandoned Cape Colony and founded Natal on the south- 
east coast. But this in turn coming under British rule, 
many of the Boers in 1836 crossed the Drakenberg chain 
and established the South African Republic or Transvaal. 
The Orange Free State was also established at about this 
time, by emigrants from Cape Colony. 

In 1877, because of trouble with the natives, the British 
annexed the Transvaal ; but three years later the Boers 
began a war for independence. Constantly exposed to 
the attacks of savage natives and the wild beasts that 
infest that section, the Boers were, to a man, expert in the 
use of a rifle, excellent horsemen, and skilled in guerrilla 
warfare. They inflicted several defeats on the British ; in 
the last, at Majuba Hill, the British force of 650 men was 
all but annihilated, the commander himself, Sir George 
Colley, being among the slain. The arrival of Sir Evelyn 
Wood with ample reinforcements restored prestige to 
British arms, but, through the forbearance of Gladstone, 
British premier, no further attempt was made to conquer 
the Transvaal. By a treaty consummated at London in 
1 88 1, the independence of the Transvaal, in local affairs, 
was acknowledged, but the right to control its foreign 
relations was reserved to the British crown, thus estab- 
lishing over the Transvaal a modified British suzerainty. 
Another convention in 1884 changed, somewhat, the 



314 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

terms of that of 1881. The word "suzerainty" was 
dropped, being offensive to Boer ears, but the fact of 
British suzerainty was reaffirmed in the following explicit 
language : — 

The South African Republic will conclude no treaty with 
any state or nation other than the Orange Free State, nor 
with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the 
Republic, until the same has been approved by Her Maj- 
esty the Queen. 

The greater part of the Transvaal is a vast, arid, tree- 
less plain, unsuited to agriculture, but well adapted to 
pasturage. And there the simple, ignorant, and unpro- 
gressive Boer has been content to live a solitary life 
among his flocks and herds. In 1885 the discovery of 
rich deposits of gold, stretching over an extensive area, 
brought great changes to the Transvaal and its people. 
Adventurers from many countries, especially England 
and America, poured into the gold-bearing territory in 
a steady stream. In a few years the English population 
alone was more than double that of the Boer. Almost 
fabulous millions of capital were invested in the purchase 
of gold lands and the working of gold mines. The city 
of Johannesburg, containing 100,000 inhabitants, largely 
English, sprang up in the heart of the mining district. 
The newcomers, called Uitlanders or Outlanders, becom- 
ing permanent residents in the Transvaal, desired the 
right to share in its government. Paying nine tenths 
of the taxes, they wished to have some voice in the expen- 
diture of the public money. The Volksraad, the Boer 
legislature, to keep the government in their own hands, 
raised the probationary period of residence, as a qualifi- 



VICTORIA 3 1 5 

cation for citizenship, from two to fourteen years. The 
Uitlanders had other grievances. Their children were 
compelled to use the Dutch language in the public 
schools. Monopolies and high tariffs burdened all busi- 
ness interests, and especially the mining interests. The 
Uitlanders complained that they could not secure jus- 
tice in the Boer courts. In 1895, under the auspices of 
Cecil Rhodes, then British High Commissioner in South 
Africa, came the wanton, reckless "Jameson Raid," 
designed to aid a rising of the Johannesburgers against 
the government. The whole invading force of more 
than 500 men under Dr. Jameson was surrounded and 
captured by the watchful Boers eighteen miles from 
Johannesburg, and the leaders were sent to England, 
where they were tried and sentenced to various terms 
of imprisonment. The British residents of the Trans- 
vaal at last petitioned the home government for a 
redress of their grievances, and then began protracted 
but futile negotiations between President Kriiger of 
the Transvaal and Joseph Chamberlain, British colonial 
secretary. The chief point of difference was the 
probationary period, Kriiger insisting on seven, and 
Chamberlain on five years' residence as a qualification 
for citizenship. The negotiations seemed to indicate 
that President Kriiger would make no terms that did 
not concede the complete independence of the Trans- 
vaal, but would make almost any terms that did con- 
cede such independence. The decision of the British 
government to send two army corps to South Africa 
brought affairs to a crisis. President Kriiger issued an 
ultimatum, October 10, 1899, requiring the immediate 



316 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

withdrawal of the British forces massed on the Trans- 
vaal borders, which being promptly refused, President 
Kriiger declared war. The Orange Free State then 
cast in its lot with the Transvaal. 

The issue, at the outset, was the narrow one of the 
administration of the internal affairs of the Transvaal. 
The issue, at the last, was the broad one of paramountcy 
in South Africa, whether it shall be British or Dutch. 

William Ewart Gladstone. — High among the names 
that have made the reign of Victoria illustrious is that of 
Gladstone. He was born in Liverpool, of Scotch parent- 
age, December, 29, 1809, and died of old age at Hawarden 
Castle, May 19, 1898. Gladstone's talents were greatly 
diversified. He was a connoisseur in art, a discriminating 
musical critic, an able essayist, and an eminent classical 
scholar. In the field of finance he had no equal in his 
day. His grasp of the most complicated details and fig- 
ures, and his power to make them plain to others, were 
proverbial. The present financial policy of Great Britain, 
considered by Englishmen the best in the world, was 
largely the product of his master mind. Many of the 
reforms that have come so thick and fast during the reign 
of Victoria were either due to his inception or carried by 
his impassioned eloquence. He was the friend of the 
common people, quick to see the wrongs that ancient cus- 
tom or corporate selfishness had fastened upon them, and 
keen to discover the legislative remedy to be applied. He 
was conscientious in all he said and did, and was an ear- 
nest seeker after truth, or, as some one has expressed it, 
"he was always struggling towards the light." Gladstone 
is best known to the world as a parliamentary debater, 



VICTORIA 317 

and, in this field, with the possible exception of John 
Bright, he had no compeer in England during the nine- 
teenth century. He was remarkably gifted in impromptu 
speech, and some of his grandest efforts were made on the 
spur of the moment. Among the striking elements of his 
wonderful oratory was a singularly musical voice, which 
he modulated with such delicate shades of intonation as 
to captivate his hearers at the outset. His words without 
a halt and without a fault seemed to flow spontaneously 
from his lips, in the purest and most euphonious English. 
In his calmest discussions as well as in his highest flights 
of eloquence, he was unconscious of self, and conscious 
only of his subject. From a certain grandeur of man- 
ner that characterized him in every walk in life, he is 
familiarly known to us as the " Grand Old Man." 

England at Home. — The reign of no English sovereign 
has been so prolific in measures for the public weal as that 
of Victoria. The England of to-day bears little resem- 
blance to the England of 1837. The removal of restric- 
tions upon trade has led to a vast increase in commerce. 
Improved agricultural implements and a practical knowl- 
edge of chemistry have made the cultivation of the soil 
less burdensome and more remunerative. Improved 
machinery has increased immensely the products of 
manufactures. The construction of numerous railroads 
for the rapid transit of goods and passengers, the intro- 
duction of the electric telegraph, facilitating the transaction 
of business, and the multiplication of swift ocean steam- 
ships, have placed England within reach of the markets 
of the world, and caused an immense and constantly 
increasing development of her resources. 



318 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

But beneath all these evidences of material prosperity- 
there is the basis of a wise legislation, which, recognizing 
the fact that intelligence and virtue on the part of the 
people form the only true foundation of national power 
and prosperity, has sought in every way to elevate and 
enlighten the people. The criminal code has been shorn 
of its barbarities, and the death penalty abolished for all 
except the most heinous crimes. The cruel punishments 
of the navy have yielded to a milder and less brutalizing 
discipline. The horrors of prison life have been mitigated, 
and the poor and unfortunate of all kinds have been pro- 
vided with comfortable asylums. Reformatory institutions 
have been established for juvenile delinquents and outcasts, 
where, far removed from circumstances of neglect or bru- 
tality, calculated to produce only paupers and criminals, 
they are trained, by a management both wise and humane, 
to become good citizens. Sanitary precautions have left 
few lurking places in town or city for the pestilence that 
has so often wasted the population of England. What- 
ever concerns the physical, moral, and spiritual welfare of 
the British people has engrossed British statesmanship, 
and has become the subject of British legislation. 

England Abroad. — The position occupied by Great Brit- 
ain abroad is both unique and grand. The spirit of her 
liberal institutions has so far pervaded the nations of con- 
tinental Europe that despotic government is the exception 
and not the rule. Her system of representation and the 
principle of making the continuance of the ministry de- 
pendent on the pleasure of the representatives of the 
people have been more or less exactly copied into their 
latest constitutions. But that which is peculiarly unique 



VICTORIA 319 

and grand is her administration of the colonies. In ex- 
tending her dominions to every continent and over the 
isles of the sea, she has doubtless been inspired, in com- 
mon with all other nations, by the selfish purpose to 
enlarge her markets, increase her revenues, and advance 
her standing as a world power. But she conquers only to 
set free ; she governs, not to repress, but to uplift. This 
is in striking contrast with the conditions that prevail in 
the colonies of most nations. We need not look far to 
find the cause. The stream cannot rise higher than the 
fountain. The love of liberty, the sense of right, and the 
living spirit of progress that fairly burn in the hearts of 
the English people, and characterize English government 
at home, must prevail with English people and English 
government abroad. And so, wherever floats the British 
flag as a symbol of sovereignty, there, in time, come liberty, 
law, and progress. As copious irrigation transforms bar- 
ren sands into fertile soil, from which springs rich and 
abundant vegetation, so must enlightened and righteous 
government, of whatever name or nation, bring to the 
darkest corners of the earth the manifold blessings of 
civilized life. 

What grander spectacle has the world ever seen than 
that presented by the young continent of Australia, rising 
in half a century from the lowest possible social condition, 
that of a penal colony in a savage wild, into an orderly, 
progressive, prosperous state, having a central capital and 
governed by a union Parliament ? In the rise of England 
and the spread of British dominion in every part of the 
habitable globe, bringing savage and barbarous races 
under civilizing and Christian influences, the believer in 



320 HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK 

the existence of a Supreme Being watchful and active in 
human affairs cannot fail to see a part of the divine plan 
for the elevation of mankind. 

" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 



APPENDIX 

The British Government 

The British government consists of three departments, 
the executive, legislative, and judiciary. 

The Executive Department. — The executive power is 
vested in a hereditary sovereign, who rules through a com- 
mittee of ministers, called the Ministry or Cabinet, ap- 
pointed on the recommendation of their chief, who is 
called the Prime Minister or Premier. Their number is 
not fixed, but the following are always included : — 

The First Lord of the Treasury, who is usually the 
premier ; the Lord Chancellor ; the Lord Privy Seal ; the 
Lord President of the Council; the Home Secretary; 
the Foreign Secretary ; the Colonial Secretary ; the Indian 
Secretary ; the War Secretary ; the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer ; and the First Lord of the Admiralty. 

The Cabinet ministers form a standing committee of the 
Privy Council, a large body of prominent men selected by 
the sovereign as advisers in the administration of the 
government. The Cabinet holds frequent sessions, but 
the Privy Council is summoned only on important occa- 
sions. The Cabinet ministers, usually called " the govern- 
ment," are held responsible for all the acts of the executive 
department, it being an established principle in the British 
government that " The king can do no wrong." These 
ministers remain in office only so long as they are sus- 

LAN. ENG. HIST. — 21 32I 



322 APPENDIX 

tained by a majority in the House of Commons. When- 
ever the vote of the House is cast against any important 
measure proposed by the ministry, it is accepted by the 
latter as expressing " a want of confidence in the govern- 
ment " on the part of the people. Two courses are now 
open to the ministry ; they either resign at once, in which 
case the sovereign calls upon the leader of the opposite 
party to form a new ministry ; or they can " appeal to the 
country," in which case the sovereign dissolves the Parlia- 
ment and issues writs for a new election. If the new 
House of Commons is in sympathy with the ministry, the 
latter remain in office ; if not, they promptly resign, and a 
new ministry is formed of the opposite party. As the 
result of the election is readily ascertained, the ministerial 
question is usually settled before the meeting of the new 
Parliament. 

An interesting fact may be mentioned in this connec- 
tion, illustrating the authority attached in England to 
simple custom or usage. Although the Cabinet has 
existed as the real executive power for more than a cen- 
tury and a half, it is an institution entirely unknown to the 
law, never having been recognized by any Act of Par- 
liament. There is no official announcement of the names 
of its members, and no official record of its meetings. 

The prerogatives of the crown are : the right to make 
peace or war ; to prorogue, dissolve, or summon Parlia- 
ment ; to give or withhold assent to Acts of Parliament ; 
to send and receive ambassadors ; to confer or create titles 
of nobility ; to grant pardons ; to coin money ; to appoint 
judges and inferior magistrates ; to give and revoke com- 
missions in the army and navy ; and, as head of the 



THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT 323 

established church, to nominate to vacancies in the lead- 
ing church offices. 

The Legislative Department. — The legislative power is 
vested in a Parliament consisting of the House of Lords 
and the House of Commons. Each Parliament continues 
for seven years unless sooner dissolved. 

The House of Lords. — The House of Lords is composed 
of lords spiritual and lords temporal. The lords spiritual 
are the prelates of the Church of England, about thirty in 
number. The number of lords temporal from England 
is entirely unsettled, but there are sixteen Scottish and 
twenty-eight Irish nobles who are elected by the nobility, 
— those from Ireland for life, and those from Scotland for 
each Parliament. The English lords hold their seats by 
hereditary right. 

The House of Commons. — The House of Commons con- 
sists of representatives of counties, boroughs, and some uni- 
versities ; England and Wales having about five hundred, 
Scotland seventy-two, and Ireland about one hundred. 

Bills may be proposed in either House, except those 
appropriating money, which can originate only in the 
House of Commons. The Lords can reject, but they 
cannot alter, money bills. Every bill must be read and 
passed by a majority vote three times in each House, 
and receive the royal signature, before it can become law. 
Although the sovereign has the right to withhold the 
royal signature, this right has not been exercised since 
the reign of Queen Anne. By its control of the public 
funds, and by its ability, through a ministry necessarily in 
harmony with itself, to shape the entire policy of the gov- 
ernment, the House of Commons is the chief ruling power. 



324 APPENDIX 

The Judiciary Department. — The principal law court of 
England is the High Court of Justice, with the Lord High 
Chancellor at the head. This court is divided into five 
departments : the Chancery, the Queen's Bench, the Com- 
mon Pleas, the Exchequer, and the Probate, Divorce, and 
Admiralty division. In practice, the Chancellor and the 
Lord Chief Justice (who presides over the Queen's Bench) 
are appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minis- 
ter, and all the other judges of which these various courts 
are composed are appointed on the recommendation of the 
Lord Chancellor. From some of these courts there is the 
right of appeal to the " Court of Appeal," and from that 
to the House of Lords, the highest law court in the realm. 
For criminal cases there are various local courts, from 
which the judge may, if he chooses, allow an appeal on a 
"highly technical point" or a "question of law," to the 
court of " Crown Cases Reserved," formed of five or more 
judges of the High Court, who reverse, amend, or affirm 
the judgment of the lower court. No other revision is 
possible except by royal prerogative. 

There are three kinds of law through which justice is 
administered in England ; common law, statute law, and 
the law of equity. Common law is based on custom, or 
precedents established by former decisions of the courts ; 
statute law consists of Acts of Parliament ; and the law 
of equity is administered by the Chancery Court, in cases 
not covered by statute law, and where justice cannot be 
secured by the common law. 

Scotland and Ireland have distinct systems of courts. 
Appeals, however, can be carried from them to the British 
House of Lords. 



CARDINAL DATES OF ENGLISH HISTORY 



55 B.C. Britain invaded by the Romans under Julius Ctzsar. 
43 A.D. Conquest of Britain begun by Emperor Claudius. 
78 Conquest completed by the Roman general Agricola. 

420 Britain evacuated by the Romans. 

449 Landing of the hrst Anglo-Saxons. 

607 Saxon conquest completed at the battle of Chester. 

827 English Monarchy founded by Egbert. 

871 Alfred the Great. 
1002 Massacre of the Danes by Ethelred the Unready. 
1013 England conquered by Sweyn, King of Denmark. 
1017 Canute the Great. Establishment of Danish rule. 
1042 Edward the Confessor. Saxon Line restored. 
1066 Battle of Hastings. 

William I. Beginning of Norman Line. 
1087 William II. 

1100 Henry I. Union of Saxon and Norman Families. 

1101 First Charter of Liberties. 
1135 Stephen. 

1154 Henry II. Accession of the Plantagenet Family. 
1164 Constitutions of Clarendon. 
1171 Conquest of Ireland. 
1189 Richard I. • 

1199 John. 

1215 Magna Charta. 

1216 Henry III. 

1264 Battle of Lewes. 

1265 First House of Commons. 
Battle of Evesham. 

1272 Edward I. 

1282 Conquest of Wales. 

1290 Banishment of Jews. 

1296 Battle of Dunbar. 

1297 Arbitrary taxation forbidden. 

325 



326 APPENDIX 

1307 Edward II. 

1314 Battle of Bannockburn. 

1327 Edward III. 

1333 Battle of Halidon Hill. 

1346 Battles of Crecy and Neville's Cross. 

1347 Capture of Calais. 
1356 Battle of Poitiers. 
1360 Peace of Bretigny. 
1377 Richard II. 

1381 The Peasants' Revolt or Wat Tyler's Rebellion. 

1399 Henry IV. Accession of the House of Lancaster. 

1401 First martyr at the stake. 

1403 Battle of Shrewsbury. 

1413 Henry V. 

1415 Battle of Agincourt. 

1420 Treaty of Troyes. 

1422 Henry VI. 

1429 Siege of Orleans. 

1451 Loss of all France but Calais. 

1455 Beginning of Wars of the Roses. 
First Battle of St. Albans. 

1460 Battle of Wakefield. 

1461 Second battle of St. Albans. 

Edward IV. Accession of the House of York. 

Battle of Tovvton. 

1471 Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. 

1476 Introduction of the Printing Press. 

1483 Edward V. Usurpation of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. 

Richard III. 

1485 Battle of Bosworth and end of Wars of the Roses. 

Henry VII. Accession of the Tudor Family. 

1497 Discovery of the Continent of North Atnerica. 

1509 Henry VIII. 

1513 Battle of Hodden Field. 

1517 Beginning of the Great Reformation in Germany. 

1531 Beginning of the Great Reformation in England. 

1534 The king made Supreme Head of the Church of England, 

1547 Edward VI. Battle of Pinkie. 

1553 Mary. The Catholic religion restored. 

1558 Loss of Calais. 

Elizabeth. The Protestant religion restored. 

1587 Death of Mary, Queen of Scots. 



CARDINAL DATES OF ENGLISH HISTORY 327 

1588 Destruction of the Invincible Armada. 

1603 James I. Accession of the Stuart Family. 

1605 The Gunpowder Plot. 

1607 Settlement of Jamestown. 

1611 King James's Version of the Bible. 

1620 Landing of the Pilgrims. 

1625 Charles I. 

1628 The Petition of Right. 

1630 Settlement of Boston. 

1637 Levy of Ship Money. 

1640 Meeting of the Long Parliament. 

1642 Beginning of the Civil War. 

Battle of Edgehill. 

1645 Battle of Naseby. 

1649 High Court of Justice, and execution of Charles I. 
Monarchy abolished — Commonwealth founded. 

1650 Battle of Dunbar. 

1651 Battle of Worcester. 

1653 Cromwell made Lord Protector. 

1654 Cromwell usurps the government. 

1660 Charles II. The Restoration of the Monarchy. 

1661 The Episcopal religion restored. 

1665 The London Plague. 

1666 The London Fire. 

1678 The Popish Plot. 

1679 The Habeas Corpus Act. 
1682 The Rye House Plot. 

1685 James II. Battle of Sedgemoor. 

1688 The Glorious Revolution.' 

1689 William and Mary. 

The Bill of Rights. 

1690 Battle of the Boyne. 
1697 Peace of Ryswick. 

1701 Act of Settlement. 

1702 Anne. War of the Spanish Succession. 
1707 Constitutional Union of England and Scotland. 

1713 Peace of Utrecht. 

1714 George I. Accession of the House of Brunswick. 

1715 Landing of the Old Pretender. 

1716 Septennial Act. 
1727 George II. 

1741 War of the Austrian Succession. 



328 APPENDIX 

1745 Landing of the Young Pretender. 

1746 Battle of Culloden. 
1748 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 

1754 The French and Indian, or Seven Years' War. 

1759 Battle of Quebec. 

1760 George III. 
1763 Peace of Paris. 
1765 Stamp Act. 

1774 Boston Port Bill. 

1775 Battle of Lexington. 

1776 Declaration of Independence. 
\111 Surrender of Buigoyne at Saratoga. 
1781 Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 

1783 Independence of the United States acknowledged. 

1789 The French Revolution. 

1801 Constitutional Union of Great Britain and Ireland. 

1805 Battle of Trafalgar. 

1812 Second war with the United States. 

1814 Peace of Ghent. 

1815 Battle of Waterloo and fall of Napoleon. 
1820 George IV. 

1827 Battle of Navarino. 

1829 Catholic Emancipation Bill. 

1830 William IV. 

1832 The Reform Bill. 

1833 Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. 
1837 Victoria. 

1846 Repeal of the Corn Laws. 
1854 The Crimean War. 

1857 The Indian Mutiny. 

1858 The government of India assumed by the Crown. 
1861 Death of Prince Albert. 

1870 The Education Bill. 

1871 Disestablishment of the Irish Church. 

1884 Equal electoral districts and Universal Suffrage. 
Loss of the Sudan. 

1898 Recovery of the Sudan. 

1899 Local Home Rule in Ireland. 

War with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. 



INDEX 



Abyssinian War, 298, 299. 

Acre (a'ker) , 293. 

Act of Settlement, 229. 

Act of Supremacy, 141. 

Act of Uniformity, 155, 210. 

Afghan Wars, 296-298. 

Agincourt (a-zhan-koor') , Battle of, 99. 

A-gric'o-la, 17. 

Aix-la-Chapelle (akes - lah - shah-pel'), 

Treaty of, 242. 
Alabama Claims, 306. 
Al'bert, Prince, 279. 
Alfred the Great, 24-26. 
America, discovery of, 127. 
American Settlements, 173, 185, 186. 
An'gles, 13. 
An'gle-sey, 14. 
Anglo-Saxons, 18-22, 27. 
Anne, 225, 233-236. 
Anne of Cleves, 145. 
An'selm, 38. 

Anti-Corn-Law League, 283. 
Arabi {ah-rah'be) , 307. 
Arch-an'gel, 164. 
Ar'cot, 248. 
Arthur, King, 19. 
Arthur, Prince, 59. 
As'ca-lon,37. 
Ath'el-stan, 26. 
Austrian Succession, War of, 242. 

Bal-ak-la'va, 303. 
Balance of Power, 299. 
Ba'li-ol, Edward, tj. 
Baliol, John, 69. 
Ballot Act, 285. 
Ban'nock-burn, Battle of, 73. 
Bar'net, Battle of, 111. 
Becket, Thomas a, 51. 
Bede, 21, note. 



Bel'gium, 275. 

Benevolence, 112, 130, 183. 

Bengal [bcn-gawl'), 294. 

Bill of Rights, 228. 

Black Death, 87. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, 248. 

Black Prince, 79, 81, 82. 

Blake, Admiral, 198. 

Blenheim (blen'im), Battle of, 233. 

Bloody Assize, 219. 

Bloody Statute, 144. 

Bliicher {bloo'ker), General, 264, note. 

Bo-ad-i-ce'a, Queen, 16. 

Boer (boor) Wars, 312-316. 

Boleyn (bool'i/i), Anne, 134, 145. 

Bo'na-parte, Louis Napoleon, 282. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 259-265, 266. 

Boston, 186. 

Boston Port Bill, 251. 

Bos'worth, Battle of, 121. 

Both/well, Earl of, 161. 

Boyne, Battle of the, 227. 

Bretigny (Bre'tee?i-yl), 81. 

Bright, John, 280, 283. 

British Constitution, 229,321. 

British Empire, 11. 

British Government, 321. 

Britons, 13-19. 

Bruce, Robert, 69, 71. 

Brus'sels, 275. 

Buck'ing-ham, Duke of, 119. 

Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 

175, 181, 182, 183. 
Bun'yan, John, 215. 
Bur-goyne', General, 254. 
Bur'gun-dy, Duchess of, 126. 
By'ron, Lord, 273. 



Ca-bal', The, 213. 
Cabinet, 321. 



329 



33° 



INDEX 



Cab'ots, 128. 

Cade, Jack, 106. 

Cae'sar, Julius, 15. 

Calais (kal'is) , 8o, 153. 

Cal-cul'ta, 248. 

Campbell, Sir Col'in, 295, 296. 

Cam-peg'gio, 134. 

Ca-nute' the Great, 29, 30. 

Ca-rac'ta-cus, 16. 

Cardinal Dates, 325. 

Car-nat'ic, 248. 

Car'o-line of Brunswick, 274. 

Cath'er-ine of Ar'a-gon, 131, 133, 134. 

Catherine of Bra-gan'za, 247. 

Catholic Associations, 272. 

Catholic Emancipation Bill, 271. 

Cavalier Parliament, 210. 

Cavaliers, 190. 

Cawn-pur', 294, 295. 

Caxton, William, 128, note. 

Chancery, Court of, 69, note, 324. 

Charles I., 177, 178-195. 

Charles II., 197, 206, 207-217. 

Charles Edward, Pretender, 243, 244. 

Charter, Great, 62-65. 

Chartists, 280-282, 284. 

Chat'ham, Earl of. See Pitt. 

Chau'cer, 90. 

Chester, 19, 34. 

Chev'y Chase, 90. 

China, Wars with, 291, 292. 

Chivalry, 41, 85. 

Churchill, Lord, 223, (see Marlborough). 

Church of England, 141, 154. 

Clar'en-don, Council of, 51. 

Clive, Robert, 248. 

Cob'den, Richard, 283. 

Co-lum'bus, 127. 

Common Prayer, Book of, 148. 

Commonwealth, 195-207. 

Com-pur-ga'tion, 52. 

Constitution, British, 229, 321. 

Constitutions of Clarendon, 51. 

Convention Parliament, 209. 

Corn Laws, 269, 283, 284. 

Corn-wal'lis, Lord, 256. 

Corporation Act, 210, 270. 

Court of High Commission, 185, 189. 

Court of Star Chamber, 185, 186, 189. 

Covenanters, 188, 211. 

Cranmer, Thomas, 134, 146, 148, 152. 



Crecy {kres'se) , Battle of, 78. 

Crete, 305. 

Cri-me'an War, 301-303. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198- 

205. 
Cromwell, Richard, 205. 
Cromwell, Thomas, 144, 145. 
Crusades, 40. 
Cul-lo'den, Battle of, 243. 
Cumberland, Duke of, 279, note. 
Cur'few Bell, 36, 45. 

Dane'geld, 26. 

Danes, 23-30. 

Darn'ley, Lord, 160. 

Declaration of Independence, 253. 

Declaration of Indulgence 214, 222. 

" Decrees " of Napoleon, 266. 

De-i'ra, 21, note. 

De Ruyter {ri'ter), 198. 

De-spen'sers, 74. 

Det'ting-en, Battle of, 242. 

Domes'day Book, 36. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 165, 166-168. 

Dru'id-ism, 14, 16. 

Dun-bar', Battles of, 69, 197. 

Dun'kirk, 202, 214. 

Dunstan the Abbot, 26. 

Duquesne (doo-kane') , Fort, 245. 

Eastern Question, 301. 

East India Company, 247, 296. 

Edgar, 26. 

Edgehill, Battle of, 191. 

Edmund, 26. 

Edred, 26. 

Education Bill, 284. 

Edward I., 67-72. 

Edward II., 72-75. 

Edward III., 75-85. 

Edward IV., 109-117. 

Edward V., 117, 118, 120. 

Edward VI., 146-149. 

Edward the Confessor, 30, 31. 

Edward the Elder, 26. 

Edward the Martyr, 26. 

Edwy, 26. 

Egbert, 23. 

Egypt. 307-31°- 

El'ba, Island of, 263. 
Eleanor [sister of Arthur] , 59. 



INDEX 



331 



El-gi'va, 26. 

El'i-ot, Sir John, 181. 

Elizabeth, 145, 154-170. 

Elizabeth, Queen of Henry VII., 121. 

Empson and Dudley, 132. 

English Language, 83. 

En-nis-kil'len, 227. 

E-ras'mus, 128, 137. 

Eth'el-bald, 24. 

Eth'el-bert, 24. 

Eth'el-red the Unready, 26. 

Eth'el-wolf, 24. 

Eugene, Prince, 233. 

Eves'ham, Battle of, 67. 

Falkirk, 70. 

Far-Eastern Question, 310. 

Fa-sho'da, 310. 

Feudal System, 35. 

Field of the Cloth of Gold, 133. 

Fire of London, 213. 

Fisher, Bishop, 141. 

Flod'den Field, Battle of, 133. 

Foth'er-in-gay Castle, 163. 

French and Indian War, 244-246. 

French Revolution, 256-259. 

Frob'ish-er, Martin, 164, 167. 

Gas-coigne' (-koin'). Chief Justice, 96. 

Gav'es-ton, Piers, 72. 

Genealogical table, 8, 9, 10. 

George I., 236-240. 

George II., 240-249. 

George III., 249-268. 

George IV., 268-274. 

George, Prince of Denmark, 236. 

Ghent, Peace of, 267. 

Gibraltar (ji-brawl'ter) , 256. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, 286, 287, 304, 

313. 3i°- 
Glen'dower {-door), Owen, 94. 
Gloucester (glos'ter), Richard, Duke of, 

1 17-124. 
Godwin, 31. 

Gordon, "Chinese," 307, 308, 309. 
Government, 321-324. 
Grand Alliance, 226. 
Grand Alliance, Second, 231. 
Greece, 273. 

Grey, Lady Jane, 133, note, 149, 150. 
Grey, Lord, 118. 



Grouchy (groo-she') , Marshal, 264, note. 
Guiana {ge-ah'nah), 178, 311. 
Guise (gweez), Duke of, 153. 
Gunpowder Plot, 172. 
Guth'rum, 24. 
Guy Fawkes, 172. 

Ha'be-as Cor'pus Act, 216 
Halidon Hill, Battle of, 76. 
Hampden, John, 187, 191. 
Han'o-ver, 279, note. 
Har-fleur' {flur'), 99. 
Harold, 32. 

Hastings, Battle of, 32. 
Hastings, Lord, 118. 
Hastings, Warren, 294. 
Hav'e-lock, General, 295, 296. 
Hawke, Admiral, 247. 
Hawkins, Admiral, 164, 167. 
Hen'gist and Horsa, 18. 
Henrietta Maria, 177, 182. 
Henry I., 43-46. 
Henry II., 47, 49-56. 
Henry III., 64-67. 
Henry IV., 91-96. 
Henry V., 96-101. 
Henry VI., 102-109. 
Henry VII., 120-122, 125-131. 
Henry VIII., 131-146. 
Heptarchy, 20. 
High Commission, 185, 189. 
High Court of Justice, 194. 
Hongkong, 291. 

House of Commons, 66, 84, 323. 
House of Lords, 84, 195, 323. 
Howard, Catherine, 145. 
Howard, Lord, 167. 
Huguenots {hu'ge-nots) , 182. 
Hundred Years' War, 77, 98, 105. 

Impressment of Seamen, 265. 

Independents, 192. 

India, 247-249, 296. 

Indian Mutiny, 293-296. 

Ink'er-man, Battle of, 303. 

Interdict, 60. 

Invincible Ar-ma'da, 166. 

Ireland, 54, 191, 196,227,271,286-288,289. 

Irish Church, 286. 

Irish Land Bill, 287, 288. 

Isabella, Queen, 74, 76, 78. 



332 



INDEX 



[ac'o-bites, 237. 

James I., 171-178. 

James II., 218-226. 

James the Pretender, 238. 

James, Poet-King of Scotland, 95. 

Jameson Raid, 315. 

Jamestown, 173. 

Jeffreys, Judge, 219-221. 

Jews, 56, 71, 201, 283. 

Joan of Arc, 102-104. 

John, 55, 59-64. 

John of Gaunt, 82, 83, 125. 

Joint High Commission, 306. 

Judgment of God, 52. 

Judiciary System, 52, 324. 

Kha'li-fa, 309. 
King's Evil, 31. 
Kings of England, 5. 
Kirke's Lambs, 220. 
Kitch'en-er, Sir H. H., 308, 309. 
Kriiger {kroog'er), Paul, 315. 

La Hogue {hog). Battle of, 228. 

Langside, Battle of, 162. 

Lang'ton, Stephen, 60, 63. 

Lat'i-mer, Bishop, 151. 

Laud, Archbishop, 185, 189. 

Leicester {les'ter), Earl of, 166. 

Leipzig {lipc'tsik), 262. 

Lewes (lu'is) , Battle of, 66. 

Lexington, Battle of, 252. 

Limoges {le-mozh') , Viscount of, 58. 

Llew-el'lyn, 67. 

Loch-le'ven Castle, 162. 

Lollards, 90, 95, 96, 97. 

Londonderry, 227. 

Long Parliament, 189, 206. 

Louis XIV. of France, 213, 214, 226, 231, 

233. 2 37. 256. 
Louis XV. of France, 257. 
Louis XVI. of France, 257, 258, 259. 
Louis XVIII. of France, 263. 
Louis Philippe {loo'e fe-leep'), 275. 
Louisburg, 242. 
Luck'now, 294-296. 
Luther, Martin, 139. 

Magna Charta, 61, 62. 
Mah'di {-dee), 308, 309. 
Ma-ju'ba Hill, 313. 



Mal'a-koffi 303. 

Malplaquet {mal-plah-ka'), Battle of, 233. 

Mar, Earl of, 238. 

Margaret of Anjou {on-zhoo'), 105, III, 

112. 
Maria Theresa (te-fe'sa/i) , 242. 
Marl'bor-ough, Duke of, 223, 233, 234. 
Marlborough, Duchess of, 234. 
Marston Moor, Battle of, 192. 
Mary I. [Tudor], 150-154. 
Mary II. [wife of William III.], 225, 

228. 
Mary, Queen of Scots, 146, 157, 159-163. 
Mash'am, Mrs., 236. 
Matilda [wife of Conqueror] , 38. 
Matilda [wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet] , 

45-47- 

Matilda [wife of Henry I.] , 43. 

Mee'rut, 294. 

Milton, 217. 

Min'den, Battle of, 247. 

Monk, General, 205. 

Monmouth, Duke of, 219. 

Montcalm {mont-kahm') , Marquis of, 246. 

Montfort, Simon de, 66. 

More, Sir Thomas, 136, 137, 141. 

Mortimer, Roger, 74, 75, 76. 

Mortimer's Cross, Battle of, 108. 

Nana Sahib {sah-heeb'), 295. 

Nantes {nants), Edict of, 226. 

Napoleon, 259-265, 266. 

Nase'by, Battle of, 192. 

Navarino {nah-vah-re'no) , Battle of, 273. 

Navigation Laws, 198, 284. 

Navy, British, 101. 

Nelson, Lord, 261. 

Nev'ille's Cross, Battle of, 80. 

New Forest, 40. 

New Or'leans, Battle of, 267. 

Nightingale, Florence, 302. 

Normans, 33, 36. 

Northampton, 76, 107. 

Oates, Titus, 215. 
O'Connell, Daniel, 272. 
Oldcastle, Sir John, 97. 
Om-dur'man, Battle of, 309. 
Orange Free State, 313, 316. 
" Orders of English Council," 266. 
Ot'ter-burn, 90. 



INDEX 



333 



Ou'de-nar-de (-deb) , Battle of, 233. 
Oxford Reformers, 136-139. 

Pakenham (pak'01-am), General, 267. 

Paris, Treaties of, 249, 256. 

Parliament, 66, 68, 84, 229, 235, 240, 275, 

289, 323. 
Parliamentary Reform, 269, 275. 
Parr, Catherine, 145. 
Peasant Revolt, 147. 
Peel, Sir Robert, 284. 
Pembroke, Earl of, 64. 
Peninsular War, 261. 
Percies, Revolt of, 94. 
Peter the Hermit, 40. 
Petition of Right, 182. 
Philip II. of Spain, 150, 152, 157, 166- 

168. 
Phil-ip'pa, Queen, 80. 
Pilgrim Fathers, 173. 
Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan's, 215. 
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 245, 249, 

255- 
Pitt, William, the Younger, 267. 
Plague, the Great, 212. 
Plan-tag'e-net (-taf-), Geoffrey, 45. 
Plantagenet, Origin of Name, 48. 
Plas'sey, Battle of, 248. 
Poitiers (pwa/t-fy-a'). Battle of, 81. 
Pon-di-cher'ry (s/ier'-), 248. 
Popish Plot, 215. 
Presbyterians, 192. 
Preston Pans, Battle of, 243. 
Pretenders, 238, 243, 244. 
Prince Albert, 279. 
Prince of Wales, Title of, 68. 
Printing, 128. 
Privy Council, 321. 
Protestants, 143. 
Puritans, 155. 
Purveyance, 175. 
Pym, John, 190. 

Quakers, 202, 212. 
Que-bec', Battle of, 246. 
Quiberon Bay, 247. 

Raleigh (raw'fy), Sir Walter, 177. 
Ramillies {rah-me-yee'), Battle of, 233. 
Reformation, First, 83, 88, 96-98. 
Reformation, Great, 139, 141, 148. 



Regicides, 209. 

Reign of Terror, 259. 

Restoration, 205-210. 

Revolution, American, 250-256. 

Revolution, French, 258. 

Revolution of 1688,225. 

Rheims (reemz), 103. 

Richard I., 55-59. 

Richard II., 85-91, 93. 

Richard III., Duke of Gloucester, 117- 

124. 
Richelieu (reesh'eh-loo), 182. 
Ridley, Bishop, 151. 
Right of Search, 265. 
Rivers, Lord, 118, 
Rizzio {rit'se-o), 161. 
Robber Barons, 47. 

Robert, Duke of Normandy, 38, 40, 44. 
Robert, Earl of Essex, 169. 
Roberts, Sir Frederick, 297. 
Robin Hood, 48. 
Rochelle (ro-shel'), 182. 
Rolf, 33. 
Romans, 15-18. 
Rouen {roo-on'), 100-104. 
Roundheads, 190. 

Rump Parliament, 194, 195, 197, 198. 
Russell, Lord, 216. 
Russo-Turkish War, 304, 305. 
Rye House Plot, 216. 
Rys'wick, Treaty of, 228. 

St. Alban {azvl'ban), 20. 

St. Alban's, Battles of, 107, 108. 

St. Au'gus-tine, 21. 

St. Brice, Massacre of, 26. 

St. He-le'na, 264. 

Sal'a-din, 57. 

Sal'ic Law, 78, note. 

Salis'bur-y (scrw/z'-), Lord, 310. 

Sar-a-to'ga, 254. 

Saxons, 18-22, 27. 

Scone, 70. 

Scotland, 55, 69, 80, 132, 146, 171, 188, 

197, 211, 235. 
Scots and Picts, 18. 
Search Warrants, 250. 
Se-bas-to'pol, 302, 303. 
Sedgemoor, Battle of, 219. 
Septennial Act, 240. 
Serfdom, 22, 86, 88. 



334 



INDEX 



Seven Years' War, 247. 

Se-ve'rus, 18. 

Seymour, Jane, 145. 

Shakespeare, 169. 

Ship Money, 187. 

Short Parliament, 189. 

Sidney, Algernon, 216. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 166. 

Sidonia, Medina, 167. 

Simnel, Lambert, 125. 

Slavery, Abolition of, 277. 

Somerset, Duke of, 107. 

South Sea Scheme, 238. 

Spanish Succession, War of, 233. 

Spurs, Battle of, 132. 

Stafford, Lord, 216. 

Stamp Act, 250. 

Star Chamber, 130, 185, 186, 189. 

States-General, 258. 

Stephen, 45-48. 

Strafford, Lord, 185*, 189, 191. 

Strongbow, 54. 

Stuart, Arabella, 178. 

Stuart, Charles Edward, 243. 

Stuart, James Francis, 231, 238. 

Sudan, 307-310. 

Sue-to'ni-us (swe-), 16. 

Suffolk, Duke of, 105. 

Suppression of Religious Houses, 143. 

Supremacy, 142. 

Supremacy, Oath of, 154. 

Su-ra'jah Dow'lah, 248. 

Syrian War, 292, 293. 

Tal-a-ve'ra, Battle of, 261. 
Tel-el-Kebir, 307. 
Test Act, 215, 271. 
Tewkes'bury, Battle of, 112. 
Tor Bay, 224. 
Tow'ton, Battle of, no. 
Traf-al-gar', Battle of, 261. 
Trans-vaal', 313-316. 
Trent affair, 305. 
Trial by Jury, 53. 
Triple Alliance, 214. 
Troyes {trwah) , Treaty of, 100. 



Tudor, Owen, ioi, 125, note. 
Tyler, Wat, 86. 
Tyr-con'nel, 221, 227. 
Tyrrel, Walter, 40. 

Union of England and Scotland, 171, 

235- 
Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 271. 
United States, Wars with, 253-256, 265- 

267. 
U'trecht, Treaty of, 233. 

Van Tromp, Admiral, 198. 
Ven-e-zue'lan (-zwe'-) Question, 311. 
Victoria, 278-320. 
Villiers, George, 175, (see Buckingham). 

Wager of Battle, 53. 

Wakefield, Battle of, 108. 

Wales, 67, 94. 

Wallace, William, 70. 

Wallingford, Treaty of, 47. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 240-242. 

Warbeck, Perkin, 126. 

Wars of the Roses, 92, note, 107-117, 

122. 
Warwick {war'ik), Earl of, 107, no, in. 
Washington, George, 253. 
Waterloo, Battle of, 263. 
Wat Tyler, 86. 

Wel'ling-ton, Duke of, 261, 263. 
White Ship, 45. 
Wick'liffe, John, 83, 88-90, 98. 
William I., the Conqueror, 31-38. 
William II., 38-40. 
William III., of Orange, 223, 224, 225, 

226-233. 
William IV., 274-278. 
William, Prince [son of Henry I.], 45. 
Wit'en-a-ge-mot, 22. 
Wolfe, General, 246. 
Wolse'ley, Lord, 307, 308. 
Wolsey (wool'ze) , Thomas, 132, 134, 135. 
Worcester (woos'ter), Battle of, 197. 

Yorktown, 255. 



Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



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